10 more albums #69

Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (1981, dub cassette)
Pure Prairie League - Something in the Night (1981, cassette)
The Heath Brothers (and others) - Live from Midem, Cannes France (1983, dub cassette)
Roger Waters - Radio KAOS (1987, dub cassette)
Jerry Giddens - For Lydia (1995, dub cassette)
Various Artists
- Big Sound New Music Sampler (2009, mp3 download)
- Blood and Fire Sampler (2009, mp3 download)
- Ryko Flash of Light Sampler (2009, mp3 download)
Gentle Giant - In a Power Free Interview (2009, mp3 download)
The Osborne Brothers and Mac Wiseman - The Essential Bluegrass Album (1987, CD)

I'm a big fan of Pat Metheny. I don't remember exactly how I acquired this tape. I know I made it myself, but from what and whose? Anyhow I had this CD on my yourmusic.com queue but they ran out of stock before I got down to it. Then I discovered this tape while going (yet again) through my old cassette collection so I thought I'd go ahead and convert it. It sounds okay, but I still want the CD.

The PPL tape is another very old cassette that I bought when I was in high school and I'm surprised it hasn't worn out because of its age. They were a group that served as a sort of bridge in my listening habits when they (the habits, that is) were undergoing a somewhat dramatic transformation back then--not quite country, not quite rock, somehow both and neither.

The Heath Brothers album (jazz) is another dub tape that I'm pretty sure I recorded from the radio, but I don't remember the exact details, except that they played the full album with no commercial interruptions, and I'm guessing it was from KRTU but I'm not sure.

Radio KAOS is from a dub tape that I made of the CD that belonged to my friend Babel when we were house-mates many years ago. I think--not totally sure about that.

Jerry Giddens is another dub tape made from a CD that belonged to a co-worker in the mid-90s. He picked it up at one of Giddens' gigs in San Antonio back then. I'm having a hard time finding any info about him on ye olde internette, but here's a link to a review of this album at answers.com.

The Big Sound Sampler is a free download (Australian alt-rock) from Amazon.com. In my weird rating system this gets a 7 out of 20 for notable artists and an overall score of 2.1. Artists that caught my ear were The Middle East, Charles Jenkins, Drawn from Bees, Skinny Jean, The Basics, Elke (who has/have a very "80s" kind of sound) and The Dead Sea. This sampler was apparently produced by the government of Queensland, Australia.

The Blood and Fire Sampler is another Amazon free download of reggae and reggae-ish music. Overall only a 1.4, with an instrumental by The Boris Gardiner Happening the only thing that caught my ear.

Ryko Flash of Light Sampler is yet another one from Amazon. I liked it a lot better, with a 6 out of 9 for notable artists and an overall of 2.8. Artists worth pursuing further are Will Hoge, Sam & Ruby, Jupiter One, Matt Duke, Leslie Mendelson and Thea Gilmore. This is mostly pop/alt-rock with some Americana flavoring.

Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock group from the 70s and I had never heard of them before I downloaded this sampler. I would probably have liked it a lot more if I had first heard it during the 80s, which was when I was listening to a lot of 70s prog-rock music.

The Essential Bluegrass Album is a collection of excellent bluegrass from the Osborne Brothers, who figure heavily in the previously mentioned collection The Banjos that Destroyed the World.

I have stopped ripping LPs because I've used up all the cleaning fluid I had and I'm planning on buying a better kind of cleaning system before I do any more. I will get it as soon as finances permit.

Album count: 700.