Ever more dictatorial

Bill Would Grant President Unprecedented Cyber-security Powers

The headlines were all about creating a national cyber-security czar reporting directly to the president, but the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 introduced April 1 in the U.S. Senate would also give the president unprecedented authority over private-sector Internet services, applications and software.

According to the bill's language, the president would have broad authority to designate various private networks as a "critical infrastructure system or network" and, with no other review, "may declare a cyber-security emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from" the designated the private-sector system or network.

The 51-page bill does not define what private sector networks would be considered critical to the nation's security, but the Center for Democracy and Technology fears it could include communications networks in addition to the more traditional security concerns over the financial and transportation networks and the electrical grid.

Read the whole thing.  They fear us, they fear the truth, and they will do whatever they have to to stop the flow of information.  Regardless of whatever else happens, this will ultimately come down to an information war, which in fact started a long time ago.

via The Liberty Sphere

A false statement deliberately presented as being true

That is: a lie.

JR has a roundup on blogosphere and MSM coverage of the "90% of guns in Mexico come from American gun stores and gun shows" lie with Fox News is Catching up With Bloggers on the American Gunz in Mexico Farce.

It is not spin.  It is not skew.  It is a lie.  A deliberate presented falsehood.  Read the whole thing for full details.  Be sure and read this Gun Rights Examiner column as well.

Here's the truth:  the weapons that the drugs wars are being fought with in Mexico can't be coming from U.S. gun stores and gun shows, because if they were, I would own the very same weapons, that is:  fully-automatic firearms, grenades, rocket launchers, etc.  They are getting there because the Mexican army purchases such weapons from other governments, including the United States', and since corruption is so rampant among the Mexican government and military, it is easy to see how these weapons are being sold, traded to, or stolen by the thugs who use them.

It's just that simple.  So if you're looking for someone to blame, don't blame the little gun store owner.  Blame your own government.

Wake the children and call the neighbors...

I have ordered an mp3 player. And it's about time. Sometimes walking those meter routes can get pretty boring.

What I am about to say I have no way to prove, so you may freely accuse me of blowing smoke. But more than 20 years ago, I predicted the mp3 player. I didn't have the details all exact, but I got pretty close. Some co-workers and I were sitting around after work one night, eating pizza, quaffing a few and watching MTV, when we began discussing CDs. That was early in the game, and I didn't know much about computers at the time, but I understood that the compact disc was just digitally stored data that could be read by a computer, if it had the correct programming. What I basically said was that someday there would be an erasable and re-writable chip that would be able to hold the data for dozens, maybe hundreds--of songs, or any other kind of data you might care to write on it. You would be able to load all your favorite albums on the chip and plug it into a player small enough to wear like a wrist watch. When you got tired of those songs, you could just plug it into your computer, erase the memory and reload it with more songs.

My occasional visions of the future back in the mid-80s seemed to be fairly accurate, and some of them were terrifying. I also predicted to some friends that there would be rebellion and open warfare within the United States no later than 2015. As time went by, I became convinced that I was just flat wrong about that one, but as more time has gone by, I am becoming convinced that I was right. I will not be surprised to see it happen.

You probably think it will be started as a rebellion against collectivism, or socialism, or communism, or whatever you want to call it. It won't. It will be much simpler, and it's going to have individualists and (some) collectivists fighting on the same side against a common enemy.

And this is why.

I really hope I'm wrong on this one.

The Residents - Duck Stab (1977, EP)

Writing about Meet The Residents the other day made me want to dig out this one that I hadn't listened to in many years. The good news is, this one is available from Amazon, and the new edition has twice as many tracks as the original. Available either as a CD or as mp3 downloads. I think I may have to download just those extra tracks that I don't have. It would be worth it.

Duck Stab in its original version such as the one I have is a 7-inch, 33 1/3 rpm, small-hole-in-the-middle EP with a total playing time of about 15 minutes. Released three years after Meet The Residents, this collection of songs are now showing a slightly more coherent pop format: discrete tracks of clearly identifiable songs, although I don't think I can yet hear the lead singer's real voice. All the vocals are altered with various recording tricks that slow down, speed up, or otherwise distort his real voice.

Track list:
Side One
1. Laughing Song
2. Blue Rosebuds
3. Constantinople

Side Two
1. The Booker Tease (instrumental)
2. Sinister Exaggerator
3. Bach is Dead
4. Elvis and His Boss

A few comments on specific songs. "Laughing Song" is written in limericks. "Blue Rosebuds" is the slowest and second-longest song on the record and is just flat-out creepy. "Constantinople" is one of the most insidious earworms I have ever heard. "Bach is Dead" has a very catchy rhythm once the "singing" starts and as for "Elvis and His Boss," well, it shows that The Residents have long had a fascination with Elvis that years later came to a spectacular climax with the album The King and Eye. If you click through the Amazon link at the bottom you can listen to song samples for the whole new extended version of this album.

One other note, that I almost forgot. In a couple of these songs, like "Constantinople" and "Bach is Dead," it seems to me that there are at least two different things going on. It sounds to me as if two different chord structures were layered together. Taken alone, either one would sound sweet and fairly "normal," but together they create extreme tension (some might say "discord" but I don't like to use that word because "discord" is mostly subjective based on what the listener is accustomed to hearing). It makes for a very dramatic effect.

This is another one that ordered direct from Ralph Records sometime in the mid-80s.

Ripping results: perfect, but it wasn't easy. I had to thoroughly clean side 2 several times to get rid of two bad skips, and I manually removed some pops after recording the wav files. But my finished mp3s are flawless.

Some people consider this their best album. It combines the total weirdness of Meet The Residents with songs that are just barely normal enough that you can sing along with them, more or less.

Still, it was better than that time he materialized at Woodstock...

For just an instant, the Doctor got the chameleon circuit to work. Unfortunately, the gravitic anomalizer malfunctioned in the exact same instant, causing an unexpected materialization in a most inopportune place...

Original totally hoarked from Gone Rick Motel.

Kenny G - The Moment (1996, CD)

I take it all back. Every single disparaging remark I ever made about Mr. Gorelick, I take it all back. When my wife came home from a yard sale a few weeks ago with this CD, I was at first outraged. I believed I had shown her the light--taught her better than to buy anything such as this. I thought I had failed.

But in her wisdom, she selected the one disc that would change my mind.

Yes, this is the album that will do it. The album that you must have. From the simple elegance of the title track, to the subtle (but hot!) Latin rhythms of "Havana," to the soaring and wistful elegance of "Always," and to the gut-crunching blues of "Eastside Jam," this is the album that speaks to everyone and anyone--the album that will change how you hear elevator music, and most importantly, the album that will change your life.

I have said enough. Anything more would be a waste of your time. Quit reading this blog and go buy it. Right now. Lock yourself in your room, turn off the phones, put the headphones on and prepare to be changed. I mean it.

Wendy Carlos - The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969, LP)

First, let me say that I am ashamed that this is the only Wendy Carlos album I have in my collection. But, during my record-buying heyday I didn't have the resources of the internet at my disposal, nor did I have anyone to mentor me and tell me about artists I might be interested in. I had to find my way as I went along, and sometimes I strayed in the wrong direction. Also, one can't buy everything.

Above is the cover of the album I have, which is the original and was purchased second-hand. To the right is a thumbnail of the modern cover. Yes, there is one notable difference, but this post is about her music and not her life choices, which some may find objectionable but as far as I'm concerned are irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Wendy Carlos was, and is, a pioneer of electronic music. I'm sure this doesn't mean a lot to anyone who isn't a fan of electronic music, but this album and its predecessor (Switched-On Bach) were a revolution in the field of electronic music, not to mention the field of audio engineering and the art of creating new sounds electronically.

Wendy Carlos was far ahead of everyone else in all of these fields, and I don't think anyone else on the planet has ever been more expert than she was (is) at wringing such a wide variety of timbres from the Moog synthesizer.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the liner notes:

Something went wrong. "Switched-On Bach" was meant to be an artistic experiment, a learning and testing vehicle, an example of a contemporary composer trying to find himself--not the marked commercial success it has so clearly become. And one year later, here we were, faced with deciding the content of a follow-up album. Walter wanted to attempt an orchestration of an ambitious 19th-century work, but insufficient multitrack facilities prevented that. And doing one of Walter's own works seemed untimely and best left for another year. Finally, the public's enthusiasm for more electronic Bach supplied the answer, and the result is this new switched-on baroque album.

Something went wrong. Several critics and a lot of interested musicians and music lovers started to ask "How does the Moog do it all?"--implying that the machine was somehow responsible for the artistry and creativity to which our "Switched-On" audience has responded.

And so the myth was perpetuated that led to the unique situation in which we now find ourselves where, in effect, a Steinway piano can receive curtain calls for a performance by the eminent Mr. Horowitz (or, yes, even Mr. Gould).

But at this point in time, the synthesizer is really nothing more than an embryo. And, just as the pioneers of electronic music established the groundwork with what they had available, Walter has carried on, within the limitations of the current device (and there are frustratingly many), the task of bringing the medium (electronic music) out of associations with but one style (contemporary, aleatoric, serial, etc.) in the music mainstream. Walter is uniquely qualified for such a task, for in him are combined the hybrid talents of composer, performer, conductor, instrument designer and builder, piano tuner, acoustician, recording engineer--and tireless worker.

This was written in 1969, when electronic music was still new, strange, and perhaps mistaken as faddish. It was exciting and different, but would it last? The Moog, the first portable synthesizer that was affordable by individuals rather than major studios and corporations, had begun to make serious inroads into music, but it seemed so limited. After all, it was monophonic, for one thing. And this is monophonic not as opposed to stereophonic, but monophonic as opposed to polyphonic. It had a keyboard, but it played only one note at a time! Those who derided it for this "limitation" apparently chose to selectively forget that many instruments are monophonic: take the sax or the trumpet, for examples. Some derided the synthesizer as "not real music" because the sounds were produced electronically rather than acoustically, but this is a typical reaction to all things new, in the same way that some acoustic guitarists derided the first electric guitars, and I'm sure somewhere back in the dim mists of time someone did the same thing the first time someone put two bows of different sizes next to each other so he could pluck out a rhythmic perfect fourth.

For the sake of completeness, I have included a fairly high-res scan of the complete liner notes. Click to enlarge and you may be able to read it all.


Throughout the 70s and into the 80s, most people knew the Moog only as "that fat sawtooth lead they use in all those rock songs." But Wendy Carlos had already proven that the Moog was capable of so much more than that.

No attempt was made to imitate any existing instrument, and it presented some rewarding challenges in the final mix to insure flexible solo, accompaniment and tutti balances. As in the Monteverdi and some of the Handel, I was concerned that the results have a breadth and depth more typical of so-called "live recordings," so I evolved several hybrid echo-reverberation techniques.

Carlos was working well beyond the cutting edge in this and her previous album, and in my opinion other more popular musicians who came along later would have done well to pay much closer attention to the work she had done.

Ripping results: Perfect, which is almost unbelievable, since this record had to knock around in someone else's collection for at least 20 years before I bought it.



If you are a fan of electronic music, this album or her previous one, Switched-On Bach, should be in your collection (probably both). I can easily see myself buying anything she has released.

Woo hoo!

I noticed at work today that I had made the list of those who got 10 or fewer mistakes for the month of March (our "reading month" officially ended last Friday). This is the first time I've ever made that list since I got hired. I had six. The main reason this is good is because if I hadn't made the list at least once this year, I would have gotten a "failed to meet expectations" on my next year's evaluation. It also means I get a $50 accuracy bonus on my next paycheck.

I've gotten close to 10 or less several times, but I'm usually somewhere in the 11-15 range. You may think 15 mistakes a month sounds terrible, but considering I read about 12,000 meters per month, it's really not that bad.

Argh...

No album post today. I'm going to try to write one, but I have resolved not to publish any such post until at least one day after I think I've finished it. This is because I always think of extra stuff to add. I've updated that last Residents post three or four times since I published it. Gotta let 'em stew for a while.

Woo hoo!

So that's how it works. I clicked the "down thumb" on a stupid, ignorant comment and poof! It was buried. I guess 5 down thumbs buries it.

Record Store Day

The original idea for Record Store Day was conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Franscisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

Record Store Day is currently managed by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Scott Register, and Carrie Colliton. Folks wanting to contact Record Store Day are encouraged to email us at information@recordstoreday.com

NOTE:
A Record Store Day participating store is defined as a physical retailer whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation. (In other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths).

Read more about it and get ongoing updates at the Record Store Day website.

The Residents - Meet the Residents (1979 re-release, LP)

I don't feel that I'm really very qualified to comment on avante-garde music, because I'm not that big of a fan. I dabble in it, a little, just as a curiosity, but much of it is rather hard on the ears (my ears, anyway).

The liner notes say, in part, "Let the strangeness wear off through a couple of plays." Well, I've listened to this one many times and the strangeness hasn't worn off yet.

I had the curious experience recently of trying to backtrack through my memories and recall how I first learned of The Residents. I felt like I was wandering through a hedge maze: now and then I could see another avenue through a gap in the growth, but the ultimate goal was still unknown. But finally, I think I remembered.

Back in the 80s and early 90s I used to get periodical catalogs from (primarily) booksellers Loompanics and Amok. It may have been in one of those catalogs, or maybe in something I bought from one of them, that I first read about The Residents. Or, it may have been something in The Book of the SubGenius or High Weirdness By Mail. I think High Weirdness is the most likely, because it might have listed Ralph Records. Anyway, my curiosity eventually convinced me to buy this album, which I had to order directly from Ralph Records. Music stores around here just don't even know who The Residents are.

Re-release notes:

ABOUT THIS PRESSING...
MEET THE RESIDENTS was originally released in 1974, on the Ralph Records label. The tapes were monaural recordings on home equipment and suffered further fidelity loss in the mastering and pressing states. In 1976, The Cryptic Corporation came into legal possession of the The Residents recordings, and began working on how to restore these original tapes to studio quality. Using the master tape as a directive, the album was disassembled, reprocessed, and reconstructed into this true stereophonic version. No re-recording was employed. The artists who appear on this recording have personally approved this as an authorized realization of the original LP.

THE CRYPTIC CORPORATION

The cover above was not the original cover, it is the version I have, which was made for the 1979 re-release of the album. The original cover is to the left. The cover art and the faux names of the band members is as far as the parody goes, however, the music is nothing in the nature of parody, but is all original.

I'm sure there are many things that set The Residents apart from most groups, but one big thing is that the individuals have intentionally sought anonymity. There is a lot of speculation as to who they are, and I have read a couple of good theories about their lead singer at least. [My own pet theory is that "they" are not a group at all, but a single individual.] But to the general public at large, their identities still remain unknown, although they have been active for 40 years and this, their first record, was originally released in 1974.

If you've read this far and haven't gotten bored, take a minute to read the liner notes below. Click to enlarge.


So, how much of this is true and how much is fabricated? Only The Residents know for sure.

I have a few other things of theirs, a mixture of records and CDs. I'll get around to all of them later, I suppose.

If you look this album up on Amazon, or click through the link at the end of this post, they have song samples that you can listen to.

Track list:
Side One
1. Boots
2. Numb Erone
3. Guylum Bardot
4. Breath and Length
5. Conseulo's Departure
6. Smelly Tongues
7. Rest Aria
8. Skratz
9. Spotted Pinto Bean

Side Two
1. Infant Tango
2. Seasoned Greetings
3. N-ER-GEE (Crisis Blues)

The first six tracks of side one are throughly enmeshed into each other, breaking them into individual tracks would have been impossible, and I don't think they were ever meant to be heard apart from each other anyway. So my final version of them resulted in 7 mp3s instead of the total 12.

Ripping results: One faint pop on N-ER-GEE that I wasn't able to dig out, which may not even be noticeable to the casual listener, although I don't know if it's possible to "casually" listen to The Residents.

As time went by their music became more accessible, more "pop" oriented, and they even have a few songs that I could envision being played on some small college station late at night. I could see myself buying more of their stuff, just for the adventure it would be to listen to it. I would especially like to get their compilations Heaven? and Hell!

If you are not into the avante-garde/experimental side of pop or rock, I wouldn't recommend this one for you. I think the compilations I mentioned (which I have heard some of) would be a better starting point. The music on this record is a combination of singing, speaking, chanting, instrumental playing and found sound that is at times hypnotic, sometimes scary, and sometimes yes, there is a melody that you can whistle. I have to admit that I still don't completely get it, but I'm closer now than I once was.

It looks like this record is now out of print, you can't even get it new from Amazon but maybe you can find a used one if you really want to, and you might get lucky and get one from Ralph Records if they can find some, but don't count on it. I hadn't realized it was so hard to find these days. I guess it's a good thing I got it when I did.

A Uriah Heep fan hit

From Japan!

Saturday random 20

1. Kitaro - Beat
2. Miles Davis - Portia
3. Alan Jackson - Wanted (what the...?! oh yeah...)
4. Husker Du - I Apologize
5. The Who - New Song
6. Jim Croce - These Dreams
7. Devo - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
8. Duke Ellington - Sophisticated Lady
9. Hawkwind - Waiting for Tomorrow
10. Johnny Cash - Orange Blossom Special
11. Pink Floyd - Sheep
12. America - Sister Golden Hair (always reminds me of someone I used to know--hey Brer, remember Vicki?)
13. Monk's Choir of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Martin, Beuron - Third Christmas Mass
14. Little Texas - You and Me Forever (same compilation as Alan Jackson above)
15. Yes - It Can Happen
16. Ticon - On the Rocks
17. Suzanne Vega - Knight Moves
18. Henry Purcell - Prelude to Dido and Aeneas
19. The Jaye Consort - The Song of the Ass
20. Andres Segovia - Sarabande (by Handel)

Spent a good deal of time today getting the old Win98 machine back on the internet, but only temporarily so my daughter could do some church-related online activity. Discovered that the CD drive in that computer won't read CD-RWs that I wrote with this machine, but it will read regular CD-Rs. Yeesh, what a pain. Downloaded some freeware antivirus that still works on Win98 from Sourceforge. That machine isn't critical, and I can always use the "restore" disc that came with it to start it all over again, which I actually did just recently because it was still totally bogged down from when I used to use it as my main machine a few years ago. But, I thought it was a good exercise for the kids to learn the importance of keeping your computer protected. Ripped one more record and edited a couple others that I had previously ripped but not broken down into individual tracks yet. I was reminded yet again of the error of trying to do too many things at once--I got a skip on one track because the computer got too overworked and there was a lag in the recording, so I had to do that track over again. Heh, one of the other records had a real skip but I was able to clean it up better and remove the skip that was caused by a stubborn speck of dust.

And of course I downloaded all my regular weekly security updates and ran my weekly scans. I read recently about the Conficker worm that's supposed to hit April 1. Make sure you're anti-virus is up to date before then.

The playlist above may look strange, but that's how I like to listen to music. I see nothing at all odd about Johnny Cash and Pink Floyd playing back to back. I remember back around 1980 or so, maybe a little earlier, one of our local AM stations (KONO) ran a program where they asked for listeners to send in their three favorite songs, in order of preference. Song #1 got 3 points, song #2 got 2 points, song #3 got 1 point. They tallied everything up and played The Top 860 Songs of All Time (because they're on 860 AM). I don't remember what the #1 song turned out to be, but I do remember that somewhere near the top they played "El Paso City" by Marty Robbins and "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin back to back. I thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever heard on the radio.

Freeze warning tonight! But April is coming and it will get hot soon. I figured out how to pack an extra 24 ounces of liquid plus two sandwiches into my ice chest for work. Now I can carry:

One, 24-ounce bottle filled with water and frozen.
One, 20-ounce bottle filled with water and frozen.
Two, 20-ounce bottles filled with refrigerated water.
Two, 12-ounce bottles filled with refrigerated "gatorade."
Plus two sandwiches and maybe a couple of granola or candy bars or a banana. I also like to carry Little Debbie brownies because they pack an enormous amount of carbohydrates and they taste good. I don't like bananas, I really only tolerate them, but I eat them when I'm working because they are so rich in potassium and carbohydrates. The frozen bottles help keep everything cool, and by the time I'm out of the other liquids they've thawed enough that I can get more water from them if I need to. If it's really hot, like torrid, I'll even carry one of the 12-ounce bottles in a fanny pack. But usually I just carry a Camel-Bak and some Sqwinchers in my pocket.

So when it gets really hot, I'll also be carrying a two-liter Camel-Bak of water to keep me going until I get back to my truck where my main liquid stash is. I'll also have several extra packets of Sqwinchers in the truck so I can mix more "gatorade" if I want to. Sqwinchers are small packets of concentrated syrup that you mix with water--if you're on foot somewhere you can just pull one out of your pocket, tear off the top, fill it with water from any available hydrant, and have a 6-ounce shot of "gatorade." (I use the quotes and lower case because it isn't made by Gatorade). That's something they supply us with at work.

Never believe anything until it's officially denied

There are no vampires here:

BOSTON (AP) — Apparently, it's not the bloody truth. After stories spread that vampires were strolling the campus of Boston Latin School, the headmaster of the prestigious college-prep school put a stake in the rumors. Lynne Mooney Teta sent a notice out Thursday to faculty, students, and parents denying the presence of bloodsuckers. She declined, however, to offer details about the rumors.

Boston Police spokesman Eddy Chrispin said police were called to the school Wednesday after hearing of the vampire tales. Chrispin said he didn't know if the alleged vampires were among the student body or hiding in old corners of the building.

The school was founded in 1635, and its students have included Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, Louis Farrakhan, and Sumner Redstone.

But as a precautionary measure, the school went into vampire lockdown anyway.  Furthermore, students have been prohibited from possessing wooden stakes, garlic or crucifixes.  Such items are authorized only for specially trained security personnel, who are mere minutes away while your throat is being ripped out.

Annoying

I decided that I would also re-rip the albums that I had previously ripped from duplicate cassettes, since that should improve the sound quality. At one time I couldn't tell the difference between a cassette and an LP, but now I can. The vinyl rips are brighter, punchier, the cassettes are sort of squishy. I don't know how else to describe it. And this goes for commercially produced cassettes as well, most of which (in my collection) don't sound as good as my old duplicate tapes.

I just did an evaluation of my recent rip of Tales of Mystery and Imagination, the first Alan Parsons Project album. It was almost perfect except for a bad pop/skip on "The Fall of the House of Usher." So I went back and listened to that track from my tape rip, and it was perfect. Since that record hasn't been played since I made that recording all those years ago, the damage to the vinyl that caused the skip must have somehow happened in storage. My entire record collection has been moved a few times in the past 20+ years, so I must conclude that some speck of dirt got into there somehow during a move and caused a tiny scratch in the vinyl. I don't know how else that could have happened.

So in this case, I'll have to keep the tape-rip version for that track, even though it is noticeably different. Well, it's noticeable if I'm paying attention.

P.S. The high-res (like 256 kbps and up that I download from Amazon) mp3s also sound different, even brighter and punchier than vinyl, and also sort of brittle. The ones saved at 128 kpbs sound just about identical to vinyl. Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing.

Uriah Heep - Return to Fantasy (1975, LP)

Are there any Uriah Heep fans left? Critics hated this band. I have four (I think that's all) Heep albums that I used to listen to all the time, and this was one of them. I hadn't heard it for many years until I ripped it the other day. I was somewhat worried about that. What if I had changed so much that what I remembered as a favorite album no longer seemed so great? Would it tarnish my memories of how much I had enjoyed this album? Would the music finally seem--the ultimate curse!--ironic?

I need not have worried. I still think this is a great forgotten album (like much of their stuff was), and I found myself once again singing along with songs that I hadn't heard in more than a decade.

I first became acquainted with this group via my first-year college room-mate, who had a battered old LP of The Magician's Birthday. I played that album over and over. Later on when I was back home again, I bought the LP for myself, but unfortunately it had only a regular jacket instead of the original gatefold jacket with lyrics and extra graphics. Still, the music was the same.

Being one of the great overlooked rock bands of all time, most of their stuff was hard to find in record stores, except for the nearly ubiquitous Demons & Wizards and The Magician's Birthday. I always kept an eye open for their stuff, though, and one day I ran across Return to Fantasy. It doesn't have the epic scope of Demons or Birthday, but in my opinion it's still a solid album with plenty of good music.

Special favorites: "Your Turn to Remember," "Why Did You Go?" and "A Year or a Day."

Ripping results: perfect. Perfect!

As I was looking it up at Amazon just now I learned that someone actually put together a tribute album to Uriah Heep (Return to Fantasy: A Tribute to Uriah Heep). Imagine that.

Zydeco humor

At Real Life Comics.

Rain

So, did any of you S.A. folks get to see any of that awesome lightning today? I did, a little too close. I had to seek refuge on someone's front porch for about 15 minutes while I waited for the lightning storm to slack off in Alamo Heights. I just about evacuated myself at least once. There were a couple of really close strikes.

The Cult - Love (1985, LP)

I'm sure this one is familiar to just about everyone. I don't remember why I bought it, because it wasn't the kind of thing you would hear on any of the radio stations around here, but I know I got it at Hastings. I really liked it back then, but hadn't heard it for years until I ripped it recently.

Way back when, I even hunted down one of their earliest albums (I'll get to it later) to get a feel for their history. Later I bought their Electric on CD but was disappointed with it; somewhere along the way, they had lost something.

This album was apparently quite popular with the goth crowd, although I didn't know it at the time I bought it. I guess I do empathize with much of the goth philosophy, I just never felt the need to die my hair black.

Ripping results: One skip on "Revolution." I gave the record a close examination and it appears to be a manufacturing defect that left a tiny bump in the vinyl.

Favorites: I like the whole album but special favorites are "Brother Wolf, Sister Moon" and "Black Angel." I even wrote a song of my own many years ago that was inspired by/ripped off from "Black Angel."