10 albums a day #11

Bread - The Best of Bread Volume II (1974, cassette)
Brian Setzer - The Knife Feels Like Justice (1986, LP)
Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music - Street Life: 20 Great Hits (1986, CD)
Buggles - The Age of Plastic (1980, cassette)
Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie (1989, CD)
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969, CD)
Carl Doy - The Best of Piano by Candlelight (1995, CD)
Carly Simon - The Best of (1975, CD)
The Carpenters - Singles 1969-1981 (2000, CD)
Charles Walker & The New York City Blues Band - Blues From the Apple (1974, mp3 download)

When I was in sixth grade I auditioned for and made the Wilson County Junior Honor Band, and that was the first year of its existence (I was also in it the two years following; after that I was in high school and was therefore too old to be eligible). Our band director was taking me and two others who had made the honor band to rehearsal and he put a Bread 8-track on in his car. I really liked it, so later on I got this tape to remember him by. I also have their "best of volume I" on LP but I haven't ripped it yet.

The Knife Feels Like Justice is one of my all-time favorite albums, which I have mentioned before. I also posted on that Buggles album before, click to read if you want.

I bought the Bryan Ferry CD because I wanted to hear a better sampling of his stuff besides what's on Roxy Music's Avalon album. This CD has stuff that is both from Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry solo.

I don't remember why I bought the Camper Van Beethoven CD, because I'm pretty sure I never heard any of their stuff on the radio. It's kind of odd, and the lead singer has a kind of annoying timbre in his voice until you get used to it. The lyrics tend toward dark humor. I guess my favorite track from it is "Jack Ruby," which is of course about that man. There's also a cover of that old 60s song "Pictures of Matchstick Men." Two other good tracks are "I Was Born in a Laudromat" and "When I Win the Lottery."

Back in the 80s when I used to shop at Sundance Records in San Marcos a lot, they had a promotion where they gave you this little ticket and punched it every time you bought a CD. After 10 purchases, you got a free CD. I decided to get something that I would probably never pay for otherwise, and got the Captain Beefheart CD. It's pretty strange, wandering far into the avant-garde side of folk/rock/psychedelia. Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, sang--or should I say "sang"--and played harmonica and sax, and probably some other instruments. I think I read somewhere that he sometimes played two saxophones at once. Not impossible, but extremely difficult, I'd think, and of course his range would be limited on each because he had only one hand for each. Anyway, this is the only "rock" band I've ever heard of who used a bass clarinet. I also have a tape of their Doc at the Radar Station but I haven't ripped it yet.

The Carl Doy CD is romantic piano music. My wife bought it, and it is suitable on certain occasions. Of course I had to have Carley Simon's "best of" collection to fill in the blanks, and I wouldn't consider the collection at all respectable without that compilation of The Carpenters. One thing about them that has always impressed me is how they spanned genres. For example, my dad, who is an inveterate listener of classic country and cowboy music, likes some songs by The Carpenters. Also Karen Carpenter had a wonderful voice. My only complaint is that in my opinion that is a terrible cover photo.

Blues from the Apple is a blues album that I downloaded from Fred Seibert's Kathleen Loves Music. This is real, authentic, gritty blues, the like of which you will never hear on a commercial radio station.

Album count: 110.

Deer = Rats

Interesting post at Two--Four. There are two things about deer that most people will agree with:

1. Deer are beautiful animals.
2. Deer are good to eat.

I will tell you two more things that I have learned in the last couple of years due to my relatively close contact with deer.

1. Deer are stupid.
2. Deer are mean.*

When deer become overpopulated, as they have in many urban areas that have banned killing them, they get hungry, and they are very large, strong rats with sharp hooves. They will kick down gates, tear up fences and strip gardens and lawns utterly bare.

If a fawn is driven to distress enough that it produces vocalizations, it sounds about the same as a young goat bleating. The real tragedy here is that this woman had to resort to beating it to death with a shovel when she could have just popped it in the head with a .22.

That's what I would have done, and then I would see what fawn tastes like.

*We recently had an incident where a bunch of our does ganged up and ran and beat a buck nearly to death. This buck may never recover. A couple of years ago a bunch of our does ganged up together and ran another doe to death. To death. Who knows why? Like I said, they are stupid and they are mean.

10 albums a day #10

Back to the general collection.

Bob Dylan - Greatest Hits (1967, CD)
Bob Marley - Legend (1984, LP)
Bob Mould - Workbook (1989, CD), Black Sheets of Rain (1990, CD)
Bobby Bare - The Essential Bobby Bare (1997, CD)
Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time (1987, CD)
Bonnie Tyler - Faster Than the Speed of Night (1983, CD)
The Boomtown Rats - Greatest Hits (1987, cassette)
Boston - Boston (1976, CD), Don't Look Back (1978, CD), Third Stage (1986, CD)

I thought I should have that Dylan CD in my collection. Other than that, the only other Dylan I have is that multi-LP set Biograph, but I haven't ripped any of it. At one time I had made a cassette of songs I liked from it that I labeled "Best of Biograph" and I might just select certain songs to rip from it when I do get around to it, and not try to rip the whole thing.

Legend: Everyone should have one reggae album in their collection--but no more than one. This one's mine.

Bob Mould was the primary lead singer for Husker Du and these are his first two solo albums. He has been very prolific and there came a point when I just didn't have the finances to keep up with him, besides, I liked the old Husker Du stuff better than his solo stuff, in general. These are still very good albums.

Bobby Bare is another of the classic country that can be found in the collection. He's okay, although I wouldn't put him in with other really great country artists. I remember my mother hated him when I was a kid, but my wife likes him. In fact, she has an old cassette of his that she wants me to rip & burn to CD before it wears out.

I'm not sure why I bought the Bonnie Raitt CD, but I do like it. The Bonnie Tyler CD is more 80s nostalgia that I bought cheap when I found it in a clearance bin. I know there are songs on this album that a lot of people hate, but that's only because it's so easy to hate them. There's a cover of John Fogerty's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" on this one that isn't totally bad.

I also have a homebrewed mix CD of the Boomtown Rats that was sent to me by my friend Babel, and it's a much better representative selection of that group than this cassette is.

And of course we finish with the standard Boston albums that no respectable rock music collection could be without.

Album count: 100.

10 albums a day #9

All various artists.

Six Degrees Sampler (2008, Amazon free download)
Smatterings Volume One sampler (2009, Amazon free download)
Green Hill Music Sampler (2008, Amazon free download)
Green Hill Music Celtic Sampler (2009, Amazon free download)
Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Masters (1995, CD)
R&S Revisited Sampler (2009, Amazon free download)
The Best of Both Worlds: The Second Audion Sampler (1987, CD)
The Digital Domain: A Demonstration (1983, CD)
Tribal Winds: Music from Native American Flutes (1996, CD)
Windham Hill Chill (2003, double CD)

I heard about some of these "slack key" guitar players on some radio program, so I hunted down a CD that would let me hear some of it. It's called "slack key" because the strings are slacked, or tuned lower than the traditional tuning. It's good. The Tribal Winds CD has Native American flute music which is based on traditional music, but is accompanied by other instruments and synthesizers, so it fits well into this category. Also very good. The rest are label samplers. I came across the Audion sampler at Hastings when it was first released, and it has always been one of my favorite CDs (I need to make a better thumbnail for it--that one is too small). The Windham Hill sampler is a 2-disc set: disc one for ambient music (more electronic and spacey) and disc two for acoustic-based music.

And then there are some other things. I have a collection downloaded from blogger and musician Don McClane of The Kawaii Menace. His "album" called Horribly Good is pretty good. Other downloads: 10 tracks by Loreena McKennitt, and a few tracks each from Phil Thornton (one of the artists on that First Quest album) and Robert Miles. Another album from Michael Forrest called Majectical Eclectical (2008) which I think I downloaded from his website when he offered it for free, but I can't find the site right now.

Long ago, Musical Starstreams used to make all their programs available for download. This was very useful for me, because when the station in San Antonio that used to carry their program changed formats, I wasn't able to listen to it anymore. There is a station in S.A. that carries it now, but it's one of the low-power college stations that I can't pick up out here, and on dial-up I can't really do streaming. Anyway, I kept all those downloads and broke them all into individual tracks, and I have another folder just for that that has a little over 300 tracks. All told, my ambient collection has slightly more than 1,000 tracks and runs at more than 83 hours of music.

Back to the general collection next time.

Album count: 89.

10 albums a day #8

Peter Gabriel - Passion (1989, CD)
Suzanne Ciani - The Private Music of Suzanne Ciani (1992, CD)
Tangerine Dream
- Rubycon (1975, CD)
- Stratosfear (1976, CD)
- Phaedra (1985, CD)
Trio Mediaeval - Stella Maris (2005, CD)
Wendy Carlos - The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969, LP)
Yanni - Out of Silence (1987, CD)

Passion is the soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ. The movie raised quite a bit of controversy, but forget about that and just listen to this music. It's great, and it fits into this category rather than in the general collection where the rest of Gabriel's stuff is. I read that the Xaphoon Pocket Sax was used on this album, but I can't nail down exactly where.

The Suzanne Ciani CD is a compilation of her stuff from the Private Music label. I've heard some of her music on Musical Starstreams and on the Sirius new age channel and the stuff on this album seems to be brighter, less spacey and more "mainstream."

I bought all three Tangerine Dream CDs at the same time, but I don't remember from where. They might have been bought the last time I was in a mail-order music club (probably BMG). I really like their stuff and I would buy anything else by them without any consideration. They are a pioneering and very influential group in this genre.

And then there's that Yanni album. I heard one track of his on Musical Starstreams once. I had never heard of him before and I thought the one I heard was just awesome. It isn't on this album. I don't know what the title of it was, and I don't know which album it's on, so I never bought any more after this one. I consider him almost the K*nn* G of piano, but not that bad. He had one good piece in him, anyway.

I think I can wrap up the ambient music in one more post.

Album count: 79.

10 albums a day #7

Iona
- Journey Into the Morn (1995, CD)
- Open Sky (2000, CD)
- Woven Chord (2000, CD)
Kitaro
- India (1983, cassette)
- Ki (1983, CD)
- Asia (1985, CD)
- Astral Voyage (1985, LP)
- Silk Road I (1985, LP)
- Kojiki (1990, cassette)
Mike Oldfield - Voyager (1996, CD)

Still working through the new age collection. Iona was discovered by chance. I was browsing through the catalog at yourmusic.com and one of those recommendations popped up that said "if you like that, you might like this." So I put all three of them in the queue and yes, I like them very much. Another Celtic group that is listed at Wikipedia as progressive rock, but that's not how I would group them. Their music falls into that Celtic-flavored spacey rock/ambience that is similar to Clannad in some ways. The overall lyrical theme of their songs is openly and unabashedly Christian. In fact, one of these CDs has a version of the old hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" in which they use the original words but have put them to their own music, and it's great. I haven't gone out of my way to hunt down any of their other stuff, but if I happen to come across any I wouldn't hesitate to buy them unheard.

Ah, Kitaro! Another musician who has created his own distinct sound. He began as a guitarist in a rock band in his home country of Japan, but then he traveled to Europe and eventually ran into one of the guys in Tangerine Dream and got turned on to electronics and ambient-style music. He combines all kinds of synthesizers, electric, acoustic and traditional Japanese instruments in his music, and on the recordings he plays just about every instrument himself. I first heard of him via the track "Cloud" from Asia when it was played on Musical Starstreams. I still have a couple of more records of his that I haven't ripped yet. Give a listen to "Cloud" and see what you think of his electric guitar work starting at about 4:15.

Mike Oldfield is the guy who is most famous for the Tubular Bells album from 1973. I don't have that one, but this one is pretty good, too.

Album count: 71.

Found it

While looking for something else, I found the missing sax mouthpiece & Rovner ligature. The mouthpiece is a Vandoren A35.

UPDATE: The Vandoren A35 is a "jazz" mouthpiece, with a .080" facing. I'm not going into an explanation of that, but you can research it if you want. I don't think my embouchure is ready for it. For now I'm sticking with the stock mouthpiece, but the Rovner ligature was a huge improvement over the stock metal ligature.

10 albums a day #6

Enya
- Enya (1987, CD)
- Watermark (1988, CD)
- Shepherd Moons (1991, CD)
- The Memory of Trees (1995, CD)
- A Day Without Rain (2006, CD)
First Quest: The Music (1985, double LP)
Monk's Choir of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Martin, Beuron - Third Christmas Mass (1960, CD)
Choir of the Moine et Moniales - Gregorian Chant (1995, CD)
The Benedictine Monks Of Santo Domingo De Silos - Chant III (1996, CD)
Guitar by the Sea (?, CD)

I first heard of Enya when Musical Starstreams was playing the title track to Watermark in 1988. Found the CD, bought it, then bought subsequent albums as they were released. I came across the eponymous CD from 1987 by accident. It was actually made as the soundtrack to a documentary called The Celts, and when I first saw it I had never known of its existence (this was, of course, before the internet and online discographies). She spells her name phonetically so that non-Irish Gaelic speakers will pronounce it correctly. Her real name is Eithne Ní Bhraonáin. She is related to all members of the group Clannad: sister to some, niece to others. She is another one whose music has a very distinctive and immediately recognizable sound. Her music is a mix of instrumentals and songs. She is a classically trained pianist and uses piano, synthesizers and very deep vocal textures that she creates by over-dubbing her own voice many times. Of course she also uses other musicians to provide other instruments, often using traditional instruments from her own heritage such as the Uilleann pipes. She has other albums that I don't have yet but someday I might get around to buying them.

I also keep my three CDs of Gregorian Chants in this directory. That's all I have of that kind of music, and every one of them I bought just because I happened across it. I never went out looking for any of them. Good stuff. I have no information on Guitar by the Sea. No date, no artist, just a CD in a box. Very soft acoustic guitar playing with waves and birds in the background. One of my wife's purchases, but it fits the "chill factor" when it turns up in the shuffle.

Album count: 61.