A problem (maybe the only problem) with watching, via C-Span, an event such as the Democratic Convention is that you get the full dose of everything. This includes the music.

Last night they played Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" for just long enough to get that danged thing stubbornly wedged in my head. I woke up this morning hearin' it.

I suppose I could have picked some ugly metal or jazz full of skronkitude to chase it away. But...what the hey, I haven't listened to Songs In The Key Of Life in a while.

I tell ya, this record is a pop masterpiece. It's got it all: pop, soul, funk, blues and jazz. And though "Sir Duke" got me here today, my favorite track is "I Wish". All those twisty keyboard passages. All that layered funk.

Stevie's "best" album? Eh, who knows?! I kind of like Innervisions more, but they are different animals.

I watched most of the speeches presented during the convention last night. Barack Obama was very, very impressive. I found myself thinking that this guy could easily be a future presidential candidate. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Check out his entire speach over at C-Span.

It's kinda funny, the changes that popular music has gone through over that past 80 years or so. Think back to the era of the Brill Building. There were writers of music, and there were performers of music...with almost no intersection between the two. The Beatles (at least in my mind) changed all of that. They had the musical chops and the songwriting skills.

Modern pop music tends to split the difference. There are sing/songwriters as performers of others' material. I tend to lean toward the former, though in some cases (jazz singers, for one) it's the instrumental virtuosity that's the center of attention.

But then there's the ProducerWroteMostOfTheTunes™ phenomenon. This on makes me a little queazy...and I'm not sure why. I mean, is it all that different than the Brill factory (which, by the way, produced some spectacular stuff)? Heck, you would think that the use of the cheesecakey cover art would be enough to set off a few warnings (though I used to have a subscription to the classical collectors' magazine "Fanfare", with each issue displaying many examples of HotClassicalChick™). Nah, despite my fears, I figure it's only fair to let the music have a say. It's not like my ears can see or anything.

So here we have the lovely and talented violinist Lucia Micarelli. She has played in the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and has more recently been featured at Josh Groban's live shows (which means that when my mother gets wind of this I will never see the CD again...which the wife will appreciate because the liner "art" is not making her happy). Let us ignore the Paul Schwartz/Josh Groban/David Foster trio and get to the actual vibrating air molecules.

"Samarkand" opens with a sorta-worldbeat vibe containing a sweeping melody line. It's layered with bits of percussion not unlike some of Sting's more recent eastern stuff. OK, nothin' stuffy about this.

Next the great Astor Piazolla is represented with "Oblivion". Any Piazolla composition is worth a listen and Micarelli does the winding melody proud. I could have done without the orchestration but that's just me.

Guest pianist Lang Lang shows up to duet with Micarelli on "Meditation from 'Thais'", by Massenet. This is some serious stuff. Very pretty. Very sparse.

Though I'm not all that impressed with chops, those who are will have fun with "Aurora", an excerpt from Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47 by Sibelius. Holy note-fairy, this is a beauty. Skip ahead to track #9 (a Ravel string quartet) for similar fun.

OK, now things get a little weird.

First, there's a trip-hoppy take on Bowie's "Lady Grinning Soul" that turns into a full-on orchestra with band thing. It's been so many years since I've had a listen to Aladdin Sane that I don't know what to make of it.

After the Ravel thing (which is quite good), my favorite tune appears: a version of the traditional "She Is Like The Swallow", featuring the justabout angelic voice of Leigh Nash. Had ta use the 'repeat' button on this several times.

The world probably doesn't need another rehash of "My Funny Valentine", but, what the hey, have you ever heard it done as a piano/violin duet? Me neither.

The program closes with the Paul Schwartz-penned "Nocturne"...which morphs into the middle section of (I'm not kidding) "Bohemian Rhapsody"...which then almost goes all Trans-Siberian Orchestra on us before slipping back into "Nocturne".

So, from this experiment, an attempt to ignore easy preconceptions...what have I learned? That tablas sound good in nearly all types of music (probably wouldn't work with country though). That I still don't like orchestration all that much outside of film music. That My Funny Valentine sounds great as a violin/piano duet. That Lucia Micarelli played this stuff on a Hannibal Fagnola Turin violin. That I will miss this CD after my mother swipes it.

(I'll miss the liner "art" too.)

Dan Ho wants to liberate you from your own house. From the many unnecessary items, chores and other stuff that in theory makes your life 'better'.

And just how would he know anything about this? Oh believe me, he knows. Dan and his wife were, as they say (or maybe they used to say) livin' large. They owned and operated a successful Chicago-area restaurant (Jenny's) and lived in a house of their own design.

But the thing is, that lifestyle, that "success"...almost killed Dan. One day, as they were leaving the restaurant, Dan had a seizure.

I won't get into the particulars of this part of the story because I'd hate to spoil a good read. What I will say is that, after a fashion, both Dan and Jenny decided that maybe they needed to make a few changes. One big change was selling the restaurant. The other was (you guessed it) setting the "dream" house free.

So Dan & Jenny end up in, of all places, Portland Maine. Dan starts a new magazine dedicated to home design (Rescue) that is subtitled "Rescue from House, Food & Garden Perfection". See, he does have a point. The well-mannered home, stuffed to the gills with "shabby chic", is actually a high maintenance, time-sucking nightmare:

There are chores, and then there are chores. The first set involves the usual cleaning, errands such as shopping for food, getting a quick oil change, perhaps going to the post office. The second set, the "styling" chores are those that we've all heaped on our schedules in the pursuit of house beautiful. I hate this new set of chores - arranging endless pillows, refreshing windowsill vases, dusting wreaths, replacing votive candles, wiping bath and olive oil rings, refilling individual salt bowls. Individually these are simple tasks, but en masse and on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis, they are insidious.

Rescue from House Gorgeous is one of the funniest sorta-memoirs I've read in quite a while. Ho constructs a life narrative interwoven with his plan for the de-crapification of your house. Fans of Martha Stewart may be shocked to discover that there's another way.

And speaking of Martha...in a bit of house design synchronicity, I just happened to purchase this book at Longfellow's in Portland, Maine on the very same day that our domestic diva was sentenced to five months in prison.

It's a beautiful thing.

If a recording does nothing for me, I usually just let it pass into the bottom of the pile. I've been in this territory before (with Linkin Park and Static-X). When giving this Earshot CD a coupla listens, it occurred to me that may be the last gasp of "modern rock". Gees, I sure hope so.

It also occurred to me that it would have been interesting to have been the proverbial fly on the wall during the label meetings concerning this group. Did they actually listen to this stuff? While they were pouring over the associated marketing analysis data?

Here's the condensed version of this music: angt-filled yearning guy hollers about how bad life & relationships are while down-tuned guitars make big wall-o-sound. Sure, bits of it are exhilarating in an X-Games kinda way...but it just doesn't hold up for any longer than 5 minutes or so. The song structures are also so homogeneous that you can almost create a text template. In the text below, the lowercase represents either quiet, muted guitar or perhaps bass-only while the uppercase represents full-on distorted guitar. Each song employs about four chords (not that there's anything wrong with four chords-only, far from it).

(...short, quiet blurpy synth intro, then... DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH verse: vocals over: duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh-d-duh-duh-duh chorus: screaming vocals over: DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH-D-DUH-DUH-DUH

...repeat whole thing several times.

Seriously, if you can discern one tune from the next, you've got better ears than me.

Now, to be fair, Earshot are not without talent. There were a few places where the drummer played some pretty cool fills and singer Wil Martin can actually sing (when he's not reminding me of that dude from Tool.)

The record companies complain about "illegal" downloading as the source of all of their troubles? No way, they need to look in the mirror.

Senator John Kerry attended last night's Boston Red Sox/New York Yankees game at Fenway Park. The stands were full of politicians, Hollywood types, reporters and other folks.

But...that wasn't the whole story. Oh no, far from it.

As Kerry and wife Teresa Heinz took the field for the ceremony, they were greeted with a chorus of boos!

What's more, Kerry tossed the ceremonial first pitch into the dirt!!

Do we really want this man in the White House?

During my recent mini-vacation I was, as usual, drawn to my new favorite emporium of used vinyl decadence. It was calling out to me, just a few feet past the State Theatre. We don't make it up to Portland all that often so...OK, that was this trip's rationalization.

While flipping my way though the section labeled "Psychedelic/Electronic" I got into a conversion with Bob the owner. I asked him if he'd ever heard of Alan Zweig's film about record collectors, "Vinyl". He hadn't, and after a short detour into how much he couldn't stand "High Fidelity" (he hated Barry's snobbishness, I didn't mention that I detected a little Barry in me while I watched the movie), we got to talking about the sad and weird characters inhabiting "Vinyl". Sad & weird because record collecting appeared to be the center of their lives. This was one of the reasons Zweig made the film: because his record collecting habit was bearing down on the rest of his life.

Apparently, Bob has known several of these kinds of people. One guy in particular used to visit his shop often, hunting down jazz records. Bob noticed that , aside from the man being a little overweight, the guy just didn't seem to take very good care of himself. One night after store closing, Bob noticed him sitting on a park bench dining on a big bag of potato chips washed down with a 2-liter bottle of Coke.

After a fashion the man's appearances at Enterprise Records dwindled...until Bob received a phone call from the man's sister: her brother had passed away and would he like to come and evaluate his collection? Bob's description of the apartment was what you would expect: trash piled everywhere, a mountain of empty TV dinner boxes and trays dwarfing the garbage can. And yes, records...a sizable collection. Where there wasn't garbage, there was records. Lots of 'em.

After being there a while, Bob realized something...there was no stereo. Nothing to play all of that precious vinyl on. Apparently, this poor guy's record collecting hobby was a social thing. It allowed him to hang out in used record shops.

Now, I'm not sure what the moral of the story is...not even sure there is one. I do have my reclusive tendencies but nothin' like that.

I did end up with nice copy of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica...whatever that means.

Try And Stop Me - Leo Kottke

Whooboy! This man is just full of ideas. It's fun & refreshing to listen to an artist who's both masterful and humble.

And funny. It's interesting (to me anyway) to hear the stories of where this music comes from. Check out his description of "Gewerbegebiet":

My father's parents, August and Augusta, spoke German as their native language. But not if I was around. I was small enough (so I thought) to hide behind the plants, the conch shell, the summer sausage, and listen to these mysteries. I was hearing Silesia where they'd both grown up. Later I'd hear it again when my father sang at Christmas. I learned that the Garmans have done for the consonant what the Hawaiians have done for the vowel. To an English speaking monoglot like me, "gewerbegebiet" is a masterpiece of the language. Mahalo.

OK, so what does that have to do with the actual music? I guess that'll have to remain a mystery much like Kottke's experience of his grandparents' conversations. This much I can tell you: for all of its intricacies and seeming musical recursion, it retains its folk/Americana roots.

Oh, "gewerbegebiet" means "industrial estate". Those crazy Germans!

I've been thinking about making this move for a while now...and I really doubt anybody'll be surprised (more on that later.) See, I finally got myself a new computer.

For the past several years the majority of my writing (I'd say this number approaches 95%) has been done the good old fashioned way: with a sharp No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga and some nice, crisp white paper. After completing the first draft I then bust out the wife's laptop for the transfer to digital. Said laptop is several years old and is wheezing along on its original installation of Windows ME. Oh yes, wheeze it does. Wait-cursor's show up for no apparent reason (time for "recess"!) , applications lock up just for fun, and every once in a while the whole system goes catatonic. It's then time for the good 'ole power button.

Mostly, things go along smoothly (if I can just calm myself and not allow the blood pressure to rise during all of the impromptu "recess periods") and I get my second draft created. For the typin' in phase I use the ancient, powerful and rock-solid Gnu Emacs. Yep, I've gotta type the HTML tags in myself but it's worth it. Speedy, no-nonsense, mouse-free text entry. Once the text has been created it then gets stuffed into the application OpenOffice so as to check the spelling.

Now that I've got my post just about ready I email it off to my work address so that I can post it the next day. That's it, I'm done.

Now, what's with all the computer angst? Well, I've been dealing with computers and writing software for about twenty years now...and I've developed a severe case of Windows-itis. I've got to use the stuff every single day and, take it from me folks, it's second-rate. Oh yes, it's getting "better", I'll grant you that. But "better" in the way that Ruinite is "better" than, say, Thunderbird. It'll get the job done. What I've had a hankerin' for recently is something more solid. So here was the answer: Linux.

But....one thing I have no experience with is computer hardware wrangling. Nope, I'm not interested in looking under the hood, formatting drives, installing this, that & the other. No, I want my computer to be somewhat like my toaster: turn it on and it just does its job. This desire has caused me to sit around on my hands looking for a solution. Sure, I could have gone the Mac route, but that involved more money than I wanted to be flinging at this point.

Then the solution appeared: Walmart began offering PC's with various flavors of Linux pre-installed. Now, I'm really no fan of big-box retail but to me this move struck me as a bold one. Heck, they even offered computers with no operating system installed. Can you imagine that? This seemed like something of a political move. A computer can actually run without software from Microsoft? My gawd!

Anyway, my more-than-fast-enough computer arrived a couple of days ago. The flavor of Linux I selected was Sun's Java Desktop System, which is really Sun's branded version of SuSe Linux. Setup was a snap: I plugged in an old monitor I had collecting dust, attached it to our home router with an Ethernet cable (phew! close to my technical limit there) and turned it on. It asked me a single question: what do I want to name this computer? Well, 'MarkBox' was born. I set up my account, fired up Mozilla and was connected to the Internet. All things computerish should be that easy!

Now I feel as though I've made my own computer/political statement. And...that's $99 less in the pocket of Mr. Gates & company (only how many billions to go?)

I just found out about Sweet Jesus I Hate Bill O'Reilly. It's a hoot.

Remeber though, he's "fair & balanced."...riiight.

Oh, if you really want fair and balanced, check out Fact Check. This is a great site that debunks all of the slimy hokum that is presented as fact in compaign advertising.

...by the way: it's over for this year's version of the Red Sox.

OVER.

OK, mebbee not really paradise..but close enough. Weird and wonderful stuff was falling all over the place over the last few days including (but not limited to) a giant replica of a boot at L.L. Bean, a real (and obsolutely freakin' gorgeous Picasso at the Portland Museum of Art, a local jam band entertaining the tourists and homeless folks near the Eastland Park Hotel, a new book by Dan Ho...described by some as the "anti-Martha", and yet another interesting trip to the local used vinyl emporium (where the owner of said fine establishment talked me into a copy of Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica.

Oh yea, and my new computer has arrived: the one without a single byte of Microsoft software on it.

Yummy.

Salad Days - Adrian Belew

Yow! A buncha changes have flown through the house this week, the biggest of which is the wife's career switch from plain 'ole private school teacher to teen shelter teacher/social worker. This is a good thing for a number of reasons. Perhaps the only downside is that she no longer gets the summer off. Vacation has been cancelled!! So we're packin' up the Jeep tonight and heading for the hills (ok, of Portland, Maine...which is indeed a little hilly.)

Anyway, this morning's mood is the best it's been in at least a month, so I had the urge to listen to some sheer fun. This particular Adrian Belew record is full of acoustic versions of Belew/King Crimson material...and it's a joy to listen to. Adrian's Beatles influences are right out in the open on the string quartet version of "Men In Helicopters". For me, the live acoustic version of Crimson's "Three Of A Perfect Pair" goes right over the edge. The crowd even fills in some of the vocal refrains. It's too much fun....and boy, do I need that right now.

P.S. (Remember...my favorite used record shop is in Portland...)

Think about Poland. What comes to mind? Kielbasa...Pierogi...Gołąmki...Polka...Jazz.

Jazz?

Yes, jazz. There's quite a vibrant jazz scene throughout Europe and Tomasz Stanko heads up the Polish contingent.

Stanko's music has visited many jazz sub-genres, from free jazz to film-ish music to more straight ahead fare. By "straight ahead" I don't mean to imply plain 'ole bop. No, none of that head-solos-head stuff. Instead, Stanko's trademark has come to be something like subtle variations on a theme: the catch is that the theme is slowly but constantly changing as well.

Following the pretty and lyrical "Song For Sarah", Suspended Night embarks on a journey labeled "Suspended Variations". Ten selections in which a theme is constructed (a short set of changes, a melody, riff or motif) and then modified, improvised upon & perhaps modified again. It strikes me as a kind of collective improvisation that's closer to "group comping" than free play.

Stanko's trumpet tone instantly brought Miles to mind. There's also some extra romanticism and melancholy present with a note of Chet Baker. This is not to say that all is "cool". During the very first Suspended Variation, Stanko channels some of his avant garde past with an intense chromatic run and smear of notes that'll make your ears do a "What the...?!"

A few words need to be said about Stanko's fine all-Polish group: Marcin Wasilewki on piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz on double-bass and Michal Miskiewicz on drums (Note: for safety's sake, please do not attempt to pronounce these names. Injuries may occur. The mostly-Polish neighborhood I grew up in in central Connecticut was full of names like Kubiszewski and Szymaszek, so I'm immune to this problem.) What an ensemble! The interplay is tight and just about telepathic. Stanko used the very same set of players on the previous release Soul Of Things. A few more years together and these guys are gonna be scary.

Kudos must also be tossed to ECM for having the guts (and brains) to bring relatively unknown groups like this to the States. See folks, jazz does not end with Kind of Blue. Check it out.

I used to be a pretty big fan of allmusic.com, a once-fantastic resource on bands & individual artists of many musical genres.

This morning, after a 10-20 second wait for the main page to load, I got this lovely notice at the top of the page:

Notice: You are accessing allmusic.com with a browser that is not currently supported. The appearance and functionality of the site could be impacted. allmusic.com is optimized for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above for Windows.

That's nice. So much for that site.

This Monophonic Microgroove BlogCritics Post Is Playable On Monophonic And Stereo Phonographs. It Cannot Become Obsolete. It Will Continue To Be A Source Of Outstanding Sound Reproduction Providing The Finest Monophonic Performance From Any Phonograph.

It's been a while. Too much work, not enough time for diggin'. This past Saturday provided a nice big chunk of free afternoon. I did not hesitate: off to the bins I went.

Not as many abscurities this time around, but still, a big load of fun. Like a lot of pleasures in life, sometimes it's more about the process than the outcome.

Anthony Phillips - Private Parts & Pieces VII: Slow Waves, Soft Stars

A collection of composed and improvised work by one of the founders of Genesis. I'm a sucker for almost anything that features old analog-ish synthesizers - on this record he used a Roland Jupiter 8 and an ARP 2600 Polymoog.

Miles Davis - Tutu

Miles was very hit-or-miss with his latter career pop material. I can go either way with this album. Some tunes are great ("Splatch" and "Full Nelson") while others slide way too close to funkified smooth jazz. It's that danged mid-80's sound. Very cool photos of Miles inside and out though.

Bobby Hutcherson - Conception: The Gift of Love

Some pretty inspired stuff from vibist Hutcherson. Apparently, his wife was expecting at the time these compositions were put together. Kinda funny what love can do to a person.

Keith Jarrett - Standards Vol. 2

One among many of Jarrett's stellar albums of standards with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. This record just might contain the most annoying segment of "Jarrett-whining" ever committed to tape. Those vocalizations don't get in the way of some ultra-fine jazzifications.

The Howard Roberts Quartet - H. R. Is A Dirty Guitar Player

Back when I was taking guitar lessons my teacher turned me on to a whole pile of players like Jim Hall (my teacher was so into Hall that he actually attended a taping of the Merv Griffin just because Hall was in Griffin's band), Gene Bertoncini and Howard Roberts. I've still got the tape made from my teacher's record, but since I can't play the tape on anything anymore, this album had to come home. Great guitar trio+organ music.

Ornette Coleman - The Best of Ornette Coleman

I don't have much Ornette on vinyl (besides Body Meta and my prized copy of Free Jazz) so this sampler from Atlantic was a no-brainer: "Una Muy Bonita", "Embraceable You", "Blues Connotation", "Lonely Woman", "Ramblin", "C & D". Great music, plus some killer Nat Hentoff liner notes.

Branford Marsalis - Royal Garden Blues

An older Branford album with some crazy-good musicians guesting including Ellis Marsalis, Ralph Peterson, Ron Carter and Charnett Moffett.

Prince - Around The World In A Day

Never had this in my collection before. Dang, "Raspberry Beret" sounds fine on vinyl.

Leo Kottke - Ice Water, Chewing Pine

While I'm generally a bigger fan of Kottke's solo guitar records, there's always something of interest lurking on the rest of his albums. Ice Water has his version of Tom T. Hall's classic "Pamela Brown". Chewing Pine has "Regards From Chuck Pink" and the confessionally titled "The Scarlatti Rip-Off." Kottke's a funny guy and a beyond great guitar player.

In a thoroughly depressing report put out by the National Endowment for the Arts, we find out that reading, especially among young adults, is becoming less and less common.

The decline was especially great among the youngest people surveyed, ages 18 to 24. Only 43 percent had read any literature in 2002, down from 53 percent in 1992.

I was not surprised by this, nor by what is discussed as the main culprit: electronic media in all of its forms including television (nothing new there) and internet usage. Yep, I've seen it first hand. Kids spending hours and hours playing computer games or watching downloaded movies, sometimes while instant messaging their friends.

It's too early to tell how this will impact society as a whole but it's my belief that this phenomenon is a major factor in school 'performance' (however you'd like to define that term.) If we can figure out a way to make reading cool again (and just maybe the Harry Potter generation will change this) it would go a long way toward improving how kids learn: Much more so than any battery of standardized tests.

The report can be downloaded in PDF format here.

Henry Rollins' writing will make you think...while you're laughing your head off. The man has his opinions and he's not big on the sugarcoating thing.

Broken Summers, like many of Rollins' other books, is written as a collection of journal entries. Spanning late 2001 to mid-September 2003, the bulk of the material concerns the making of the CD Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three and the tour that followed. One thing about Henry: if he believes in something, he will bust his ass to support it.

I got interested in Rollins after seeing him perform on the old Dennis Miller show. What a sight: a heavily tattooed guy clad in what appeared to be gym shorts, screaming into a microphone with the intensity of a pit bull on angel dust. All of this over some angsty hardcore-meets-jazz blasphemy. A little research and I make the Black Flag connection. But maybe best of all, the guy likes to write. Not your garden variety look-at-me-I'm-a-rock-star-and-artiste kind of thing either. Nosir. This is the distillation of a very active and interesting mind, just as intense as his music.

Check out the opening entry:

My next door neighbor died. Ninety-seven years old. Concentration camp ID tattooed on her arm. I knew she was in there but I never saw her. Two men loaded the body into a gray van a couple of days ago. Last night, my doorbell rings. The dead woman's granddaughter. She was emptying the place out and came by to ask if I had a valium to spare. How Eagles Greatest Hits is that?

Now that is some weird happenings, folks.

You need only read a small chunk of his descriptions of his musical life (rehearsals, recording sessions, shows) to discover just how passionate Rollins is about music. This passion extends into his commentaries on just about everything else. Henry doesn't suffer fools gladly and has no use for "weakness". For example, here's a bit of social editorial combined with a tasty Creed-dig:

All you have to do is listen to the songs on the radio and you know that Amerika is weak. If I was seeking to invade Amerika, the music would be my cue. "They're listening to Creed. We're going in. We'll take the Capitol in a day."

Other highlights include a strangely touching visit to Lemmy's apartment, a long riff on the death of Dee Dee Ramone (with a recollection of a trip to Dee Dee's place at the Chelsea Hotel), and a bunch of fun snarls at the general soulless state of all aspects of the music industry.

Rollins' take on things might take a little getting used to. At times he can seem a little blunt. But in this season of increasing political doublespeak, maybe a little no-nonsense ranting is necessary.

Twenty Years of Dischord - Various Artists

Man, oh man...what with all of the huffin' & puffin' about Michael Moore, the upswing in pre-convention snottiness and the general, uh, spiritlessness of the current discourse (if you can call it that)...this morning I got the feeling that that nasty, sticky, yellowing political wax layer needed to be stripped off.

And off it comes with this collection of raw hardcore anthems.

Plus, it was kinda fun to drive through the well-kept suburbs with my windows rolled down and Minor Threat, Government Issue & State of Alert blaring out...

On the way home it'll be Disc 2, with Fugazi, Jawbox and a whole pile of other family favorites.

So, Geddy, Alex & Neil decided to get together to record some tunes in celebration of their thirty years of music makin'. These are some of the song that inspired them during their musically formative years.

Now, before I begin, let me say that I'm a pretty big fan of this band. Their style of interlocked triology has always rubbed my aural brain parts the right way. But...I've always been kind of embarrassed by the UberRushfan™. You know the type. Knows the (multiple!) meanings of each lyric. Knows what and where all the 'special messages' are in the liner notes. Knows the name brand of Neil's road cycle. Gees, any of you guys ever kiss a real girl?! (Dang, you sure can get a lot of mileage out of old Saturday Night Live quotes.)

And speaking of card-carrying uber-fans, you can find some hilarious commentary about this record in the Amazon review section. Some guy was just beside himself because Rush sounds like a high-school garage band here. Well, duh! Isn't that the point? To have some (wait for it.....) fun?!

Summertime Blues

Part Blue Cheer...with a big dose of the Who's version from Live at Leeds. Neil channels Keith Moon beautifully. Loads of fun.

Heart Full Of Soul

Begins with strummed acoustic guitars and proceed to deliver a surprisingly faithful version.

For What It's Worth

Man, it's just plain weird to hear these words come out of Geddy's mouth. Doesn't stray too far from the Buffalo Springfield original but does, toward the end, amp up with some heavy chords and guitar solo fragments.

The Seeker

This is one of those Who songs that bring instant goosebumps when that beginning rhythm riff kicks in (others being "Substitute" and "I Can't Explain".) I got goosebumps here too.

Mr. Soul

Ah, I can just imagine the uber-fan scrunching up his face as Alex plays the trippy high school-type sloppy guitar solo. Too bad, 'cuz he'd probably miss the cool 8 Miles High quote.

Seven And Seven Is

Somehow, Love flew underneath my musical radar, so I'm only vaguely familiar with this tune. It's hella-bombastic though.

Shapes Of Things

More fun with the Yardbirds by way of Toronto

Crossroads

Hey! These guys liked Cream's Wheels Of Fire as much as I did. Who knew?! Geddy doesn't have the same blues swing in his voice that Clapton does, but he doesn't have to. Alex attempts his best Clapton imitation and manages to sound like, well, Alex.

One or two of the uber-fans brought up valid points: certainly a Led Zeppelin cover would have been fun. But maybe that would have pushed past their early teen years (around the mid-60's). I dunno. This was fun enough for me. Heck, I coulda used a little more.

Lighten up, Rushfans™.

My parents totally missed the rise of modern jazz. During the 1950's and 60's, all of that Miles and Monk and Coltrane...you get the idea.

No, what played in our house was Mitch Miller(as in "Sing along with..."), Tom Jones, Ferrante & Teicher, Herb Alpert, Henry Mancini, Dean Martin and ...you get the idea.

Of course, back then I had no idea that I'd "missed" anything. I just figured that everybody listed to Whipped Cream and Other Delights and The Singing Nun. (This goes a long way to explaining my first 'jazz' record: Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good.)

So, about fifteen years ago, when I went through my first great period of JazzSnobbery™ (I've since recovered, thank you), I dropped a few names on my folks, figuring to reignite the spark that surely they must have felt upon their discovery of this music.

No dice. I was brought up on the wrong side of the musical tracks.

What shook me out of the snob zone was the discovery of a fantastic Exotica/Lounge show (Martini's With Mancini) on a local college radio station. I had no idea just how much of that pop instrumental music had soaked into me. The Rat Pack, Mancini...it all came flooding back.

Now, a couple of facts should disqualify Renee Olstead from being considered as fitting in with the Exotica of yore. One is that her record was produced by David Foster (yes, David Celine Dion Foster.) Personally, I don't care about that but some people do hold grudges. The second fact? Ms. Olstead is only fourteen years old.

Well, I had listened to all of Renee Olstead several times through before learning of her age. At that point I immediately popped the disc back in and was amazed. You know, if she was in her twenties, this recording would still be pretty good. But open your ears to what she does with "Someone To Watch Over Me", "Summertime" or "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby": nobody fourteen years of age has the right to phrasing like that. She's that good. She's been compared to Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday, which is going to far, if ya ask me. But still, if she can evoke this kind of emotional timbre now, her future's just gotta be bright.

The song selection also brings in some more 'modern standards', including "Midnight At The Oasis" and amazingly (as in "I'm amazed that I like it") "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do". Most of the arrangements fall into either the Big Band-ish or waltz-symphonic categories, for the most part supporting (rather than drowning) the vocals. Probably the closest fitting comparison would be those Linda Ronstadt records done with Nelson Riddle.

What I'll be interested in is how Ms. Olstead develops over the next few years. Some of this material doesn't really fit her age (Barry Manilow's "Meet Me, Midnight" for one)...but with a voice like this, I'm expecting great things.

Ok, so the minor renovations were not as drastic as I'd first thought...no big deal. I just thought it'd be interesting to toss in the list of my current reading and listening material. Also note that the old link stuff is gone. It was a good idea but since I never populated much of it, it was time to go. I'll have to work on the annotated lists as they are out of date.

Somebody over at Blogcritics accused me of posting a relavtively weak Friday Morning Listen. I'll admit to that. On the other hand, I did stay out until four in the morning the night before. I wuz just a little fuzzy-headed after that.

The Soul Cages - Sting

I had a chance to listen to this at a friend's house last night. He owns a pristine vinyl copy and the sound is truly gorgeous. The Soul Cages came out just before some bad things started happening in the recording of pop records: too much studio tweakery and compression.

Just take a listen to Brand New Day for purposes of comparison. The music is great but is stuffed full of way too much knob-twiddlin'. The dynamic range (and life) has been squeezed out of it.

Maybe after commercial radio dies that same death coming to major labels this kind of everything-louder-than-everything-else practice will fall out of fashion.