What is spinning?

[Dave918]

Tuesday blues underway, one of my top picks from 2004

Charlie Musselwhite ~ Sanctuary

If you haven't experienced track 4, Train to Nowhere, well...shame on you

-dave

[Bernd]

Tuesday blues underway, one of my top picks from 2004

Charlie Musselwhite ~ Sanctuary

If you haven't experienced track 4, Train to Nowhere, well...shame on you

-dave

Hey Dave, good to hear from you again.

Totally agree with your choice. Great disc.

Over here non stop rain and on the spot:

is"Catherine Wheel - Chrome"

was "Drive By Truckers - Southern Rock Opera"

will be "The Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall"

nothing new, but great music for sure.

Peace

Bernd

[musicoverall]

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

What better way to prepare for an afternoon conference call than to mix some speed-metal into the playlist? Nothing like talking to a client with "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" still buzzing in my head!

This particular album culminated a lot of what Metallica had been pointing towards in their previous albums. It's a sprawling metal epic that constantly teeters on the verge of completely breaking down from its sheer indulgence. But, it holds together just enough to create some compelling listening.

I personally regard this album's immediate predecessor, Master of Puppets, as the greatest metal album ever. But, for whatever reason right now I'm more in the mood for the less coherent spiraling-out-of-control ride that ... And Justice For All offers up.

As a side note, this is one of the worst recorded albums in recent memory. It's got a dry and tinny sound with no warmth whatsoever. The LP version crammed all 66 minutes onto two sides via Direct Metal Mastering, which forced the levels way down. Neither format could redeem this recording.

Ha ha - I hear you! I just got back from vacation and needed a pick me up for the way into work this morning. "Metal Militia" from Metallica's first disc Kill 'Em All was just the ticket.

Agree that MOP is the metal album that the best metal albums aspire to. The Metallica disc from that period that leaves me cold is Ride The Lightning. I'm not sure why but I never got into that one as I did MOP, Justice and to a lesser degree Kill 'Em All.

[nobody]

I was working in a record store when And Justice For All came out and we couldn't keep that sucker in stock...we'd sell out our shipment in like a day and a half. The casettes always went first.

[Woochifer]

1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. First album I reached for ...

Green Day - American Idiot

Aside from their major label debut, Dookie, I hadn't really followed the band all that closely. But, their latest album really struck a chord with me. It's angry, but channels that anger in a compelling and introspective way. Amazing that these guys now headline stadium shows because I still remember hearing about them from their halcyon days regularly playing the venerable 924 Gilman punk club over in Berkeley.

[Dave918]

A great old standard

John Hiatt ~ Bring the Family

-dave

[Bernd]

Right now:

"Athlete - Tourist".

Peace

Bernd

[jrhymeammo]

I'm listening to Exploring the Dangers of by Dub Trio AGAIN.

I can't get enough of this stuff. If you like Electronica/Jam group type of sound, give them a try. Kinda like SoundTribeSector 9 but much better.

Going to TOOL concert tonight. They are definetly no virtuoso when it come to playing instrument, but makes me recapture some of forgotten memeories.

-PEACE

[jrhymeammo]

Self Destruction 12" by The Stop the Violence Movement.

Makes me wanna lay down a sheet of cardboard and breakdance.

[bobsticks]

NS: John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins~Tenor Madness

Attachment 2004

[Bernd]

All day rain, rain, rain. So plenty of time for some listening.
A new discovery for me......and a damn fine one:

"Essra Mohawk - You're not alone".

Peace

Bernd

[musicoverall]

Man, I love those days!

So far this morning, it was:

New York - Lou Reed. Outstanding! He's done some things since this one that are also excellent. The Raven is not one of them.

Monsoon - William Hooker/Lee Ranaldo/Roger Miller (NOT the dang me guy). Spacy free improv of guitars, bass, effects and drums. Part of the Atavistic labels "Unheard Music Series", from whence a lot of incredible music comes.

Ensemble Music 1 - Iannis Xenakis. On first listen, not quite as strong as Persepolis or some of his other pieces but still well worth the price of admission.

Touchin' on Trane - Charles Gayle with William Hooker and Rashied Ali. The addition of Ali on drums lends more than a little credence to the title. Killer free jazz, with as the title says, just a touch of JC during his later period.

[Bernd]

First outing for these two:

"Lambchop - Damaged"

"Muse - Black Holes and Revelations".

Have a good weekend

Peace

Bernd

[-Jar-]

Going to TOOL concert tonight. They are definetly no virtuoso when it come to playing instrument, but makes me recapture some of forgotten memeories.
-PEACE

Um.

Not to call you out or anything, but.. to my ears they are some of the best players working in rock music today.

Maybe we have different ideas of what "virtuoso" means.

-jar

[Woochifer]

I was working in a record store when And Justice For All came out and we couldn't keep that sucker in stock...we'd sell out our shipment in like a day and a half. The casettes always went first.

In that transitional phase during the mid and late-80s, I remember that record stores had to constantly balance their inventories between the LP, CD, and cassette formats. Always made for an interesting decision in the store if a title had the CD version in stock, but not on LP; or the cassette was available, but not the LP or CD.

Sometimes availability would decide which format I would go with for a particular album. At that time, I mostly purchased LPs because they were about $4-$6 cheaper than CDs (and a lot of those early CDs sounded horrible, which soured me on the format for a while), but I increasingly went with CDs as music stores pared back their LP inventory and more new releases started coming out without a vinyl version available.

The music store where my friend worked apparently did well for themselves by ordering at least 4 cassette copies for every CD or LP copy on a particular title. The chain stores like Tower or Wherehouse would typically order too few cassette copies for certain albums, and the store where my friend worked would get the customers looking for those titles on cassette.

I think that I found myself desperate enough to buy a pre-recorded cassette only once. Basically a situation where I couldn't find a particular album anywhere on LP or CD, yet everybody had the cassettes in stock. So, after several stops, I bit the bullet and bought the cassette version. Sounded awful, but I got my fix!

For people who whine about how the sound quality of MP3 is an afront to everyone's ears and who pine away for the good ole days, I would challenge them to give prerecorded cassettes a try, if they want to hear how most people actually listened to music during the 80s and early-90s. For whatever reason, some people think that music went straight from LPs to CDs, when the LP had already been supplanted by the cassette by the time the CD format was introduced.

[Woochifer]

what's spinning ...

The Who - Who's Next Deluxe Edition

I love Universal Music's Deluxe Editions, and I would own more of them if they weren't so damn expensive!

The Deluxe Edition of Who's Next includes some early alternate versions that were recorded at the Record Plant in New York prior to the actual sessions that made it into the album. It also includes some very interesting liner notes about how this album rose out of an abandoned conceptual project called Lifehouse that sought to create an album and motion picture using studio sessions and live shows that would border on participatory performance art. Apparently, The Who played a series of concerts that were originally supposed to be incorporated into the album and movie versions of Lifehouse, but the concerts never elicited the audience participation that Pete Townshend envisioned, and the weight and failures on the project led Townshend to a nervous breakdown.

Amazing that an album of Who's Next's stature and magnitude would essentially come out of the remnants of an otherwise failed project.

Disc Two of the Deluxe Edition includes a previously unreleased live performance that was done at the Young Vic club in preparation for the Lifehouse project. If anything, it demonstrates how potent a live act The Who were at that time. It's a very raw performance with a lot of energy behind it.

The sound quality on this version is very interesting. The remastering on Who's Next really dials back the blazing and grainy sounding highs that I grew used to on the LP versions (both a MCA pressing and a Deutsche Grammaphone edition). The balances between the instruments sound more distinct on this version, and it's more refined overall, but this is still a fairly mediocre recording and remastering won't fix that so long as they continue to use a two-channel mixdown as the only source.

The extra tracks on the Deluxe Edition sound much better than the original album tracks. I suspect that part of this is because those Record Plant and Young Vic sessions were actually remixed before they went onto the CD. The shot of the Who's Next master tape shown on the CD cover indicates that no noise reduction was used on that recording, which also means signal losses during the original mixing process if was done with older analog equipment and no noise reduction. Makes me wonder how much better a lot of other rock albums from that era could sound if given a new mix using more modern equipment.

[jrhymeammo]

Um.

Not to call you out or anything, but.. to my ears they are some of the best players working in rock music today.

Maybe we have different ideas of what "virtuoso" means.

-jar

It was one of the most disappointing TOOL show/venue I've ever seen. It was extremely impersonal, and I'll say 85% of audience there was just standing there with arms crossed. Probably the most memorable part about that show was that there were people collapsing every 10 minutes. Stupid kids dont know how to do drugs. If you dont know how and how much to do, stay at home. I used to be like them so I shouldnt say, but they are just destroying their mind and body.
TOOL is a great studio group. They spend so much time in studio with that same ol' guitar line that'll keep them around for another 15+ years. But live shows, they have always been sloppy and out of sync. I'm not dissing at all here, just stating what I've observed. But, Lyrically they are probably one of the best around in the genre.

PS Once again Maynard was painted greenish blue.

[Bernd]

For people who whine about how the sound quality of MP3 is an afront to everyone's ears and who pine away for the good ole days, I would challenge them to give prerecorded cassettes a try, if they want to hear how most people actually listened to music during the 80s and early-90s. For whatever reason, some people think that music went straight from LPs to CDs, when the LP had already been supplanted by the cassette by the time the CD format was introduced.

Couldn't agree with you more. Now there is a first! It sounded indeed terrible and even on a Nakamichi deck have I never heard a decent pre-recorded cassette. I have several and have no idea why I still keep them.

It is also the only time when I prefer digital over analogue.
Anyway back to what's making the rounds:

"Greg Brown - The Poets Game"

"Point - Cornelius".

Have a good weekend

Peace

Bernd

[Dave918]

Jazzing it up this morning with Brian Owen ~ Unmei.

-dave

[Dave918]

Moving on to George Kahn ~ Midnight Brew

-dave

[Dave918]

Next up Brian Blade Fellowship ~ Perceptual

A more moving composition would be hard to find.

-dave

[Dave918]

A wonderfully talented young lady, Katie Melua ~ Call Off the Search

This one, along with her latest - Piece By Piece, should not be missed.

-dave

[jrhymeammo]

Spinning CDs today.
Tina Brooks - True Blue
Jason Moran - The Bangwagon.

[bobsticks]

Ready for some downtime and some smooth cuts.
NS: Wayne Shorter~Speak No Evil

Attachment 2017


...and it looks like the follow-up is gonna be Mingus' New Tijuana Moods

Cheers

[likeitloud]

Last Night (Sat) it was (for the wife)
James Taylor....Sweet Baby James
Fleetwood Mac..Rumors
Tom Petty...Highway Companion
My Picks
Pink Floyd..Wish You Were Here
Dream Theater..Various Burned Stuff
Van Halen..5150
Rush..Gold.
As always, it was a blast!