10 albums a day #58

Various artists.

Rock Anthems (1993, double CD)
School House Rock! Rocks (1996, CD)
Summer Dance Party (1996, CD)
The Banjos That Destroyed the World (1995, CD)
The Best of Austin City Limits: Country Music's Finest Hour (1996, CD)
huH - CD5, CD6, CD7, Summer Bootleg (all 1995, CD)
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack (2000, CD)

Rock Anthems. Well, this is a bunch of songs that somebody somewhere decided were rock anthems, based on their own personal mix tape, I guess. Songs from the 70s and 80s in here, all radio hits to some extent. I can't believe I never deleted "Addicted to Love." What a stupid, boring, tedious excuse for a song. Robert Palmer was the most over-rated pop star of all time. Two bars, repeat it for 4 1/2 minutes. Hit song. This is the kind of thing that fuels my contempt for humanity in general. Other than that, it's a decent collection of songs that I mostly like. Good for the full version of "American Pie," the radio version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," and this may be the only CD ever sold that includes "C*m On Feel the Noise" and "Dream Weaver" on the same disc.

I was trying to find a CD of all the original School House Rock songs, but I couldn't find any such thing. I did come up with this, which is a bunch of the old songs recorded by various 90s pop/rock groups. It's okay, but I'd still rather have all the originals.

Summer Dance Party is another that my wife found somewhere. It isn't as bad as the title might suggest, but it does still lean toward the goofy. Tracks range from "Tequila" to "I Can See Clearly Now" to "Break My Stride."

The Banjos That Destroyed the World is extreme banjo music, subtitled "The Fastest 5-String Banjo Instrumentals of All Time." This is banjo music for the unapologetic banjo fan. This was the first in a series of albums (well, there's at least one more, anyway), and I want to get them all.

The Best of Austin City Limits...well, if you say so. I deleted all but six tracks.

The four huH CDs were from when I briefly subscribed to huH magazine in the 90s. Various artists of mostly pop music, though it wandered across genres now and then, for example, one CD has Dwight Yoakum and another one has Steve Forbert. The CD came packaged with a magazine every month that had new album reviews and reader commentary. I canceled my subscription mostly because the reader commentary was unspeakable juvenile and downright stupid. I didn't want even the mailman to think I was in any way even indirectly associated with idiots like that so I canceled. No kidding. I actually enjoyed the music (mostly), but I didn't want anyone to see me reading one of those magazines. These are sampler CDs, and the only group on any of these who I went on to buy an album by was Phish.

The Oh Brother soundtrack is a good collection of old-time country/folk/gospel, although some of it is somewhat "modernized" and performed by contemporary artists. My favorites are "Down in the River to Pray" by Alison Krauss and "Angel Band" by The Stanley Brothers. When I first wrote this post I had said that I had been looking for a score of that song but had been unable to find it. Well, I found it, but it was in disguise with the alternate title "My Latest Sun is Sinking Fast," which is the opening phrase.

Album count: 597.

Let's face it: Some people are just stupid

This post at Strange in San Antonio reminded me of this story from Italy that I heard mentioned on the news this morning.

The 26 year old, who has not been named, was traced by detectives after the owner of the house reported the crime.

Officers noticed the computer was still on and when the 52 year old owner touched the keyboard, the social network site's homepage flashed up.

The man, from Albano Laziale near Rome told police he was not a member, and they quickly realised the last person to use the computer had been the burglar.

He had written several messages on his wall - but not revealed he was carrying out a crime - and police were quickly able to trace him and recover cash and jewellery that had been taken.

Major Ivo Di Blasio, of the carabinieri paramilitary police, said:"He was tempted to log on during the break in and it led to his arrest - it was a silly mistake to make and we were onto him very quickly.

"The owner of the house had left the computer on and when the Facebook site flashed up on the screen we had the name of the burglar and we simply went to his house and arrested him, as well as recovering the goods.

"He did not expect us at all and was very surprised when we told him how we had tracked him down. He has a history of break-ins and will now go before a judge."

10 albums a day #57

Various artists.

Walt Disney's Merriest Songs (1968, mono LP)
H.R. Pufnstuf Soundtrack (1969, 7-inch EP)
Potatoes Volume I (1987, LP)
A Taste of Ireland: Irish Traditional Music (1997, CD)
American Roots Songbook: Americana (2002, CD)
Best of the Bubblegum Years (1988, CD)
Barbershop Harmony Time (1994, CD)
Country Hits of the 50s (1990, CD)
Freedom Rock (1987, double CD)
I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow and others (2001, cassette)

I don't remember where I found that Taste of Ireland CD, but I have the impression that I picked it up at a used book store that had some cheap and/or used CDs. It has some good stuff, if you like listening to (more or less) traditional Irish music.

Same goes for the Americana CD. It has ten tracks, and the only artist on it who I've heard of anywhere else is Don Edwards, who did a double CD of cowboy songs that I mentioned in a previous post. It's a good CD, though.

I think I actually ordered the Bubblegum CD from a music club in the early 90s. Fourteen bubblegum hits from Ohio Express, Lemon Pipers, 1910 Fruitgum Co., and a few others. I bought it mostly so I'd have "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy," because I had heard it on Monty Python.

The barbershop CD has 10 tracks, five each from The Buffalo Bills and The Cordettes, the latter of which is a female barbershop quartet. This is the only collection of barbershop quartet music I have.

The Country Hits CD must be another of those Dollar General possible "bootlegs." Artists included are Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ferlin Husky, Faron Young and others.

Freedom Rock is one of maybe three collections that I have ordered from a TV commercial. Some of the songs don't really seem to fit the theme, and some of them now sound so stupid that they're hard to listen to without an ironic smirk. However, it does have several songs that I like enough to count the collection as a good score, like "One Tin Soldier," "Signs," In the Year 2525," "Lay Down" and "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo."

The last one on cassette is another of those truck-stop tapes (possible "bootleg") that I bought somewhere while truck-driving. It has The Stanley Brothers, Cowboy Copas, and The Nashville Dulcimers (which I mentioned before), plus several others I hadn't heard of before. It's a good collection of that old kind of country/folk music.

Album count: 587.

Been watching a lot of Trigun today...

...while resting and recovering from the last effects of the flu shot I got earlier this week, which had me feeling sort of thin and stretched the last couple of days.

Trigun ending theme, English translation:

Underneath the blue sky
the wind blows towards the future,
As if to draw the rays
of the sun into an embrace.
I just let it push me around,
leaving only my footprints behind.
If I have the air to stroke my cheek
and soft grass to fall down on,
I don't need anything else.
Sleeping with a contented smile,
I stare into tomorrow that stretches on endlessly.


Great series.

10 albums a day #56

The Who
- Tommy (1969, double CD)
- Who's Next (1971, CD)
- Who Are You (1978, CD)
Yes
- Going for the One (1977, LP)
- Tormato (1978, LP)
- Yesshows (1980, cassette)
- Classic Yes (1981, LP)
- 90125 (1983, LP)
Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force (1984, cassette)
Yothu Yindi - Tribal Voice (1992, CD)

I guess it was the prompting of a co-worker that got me buy any of The Who's albums. They are one of the great bands of rock music, and they have a few songs that I would count among my overall favorites. I just never seriously went out to learn all about them in the way that I did with some bands. My favorite song of theirs is not one of their most popular: "905" from Who Are You.

Those five Yes albums are all I have, and all I intend to ever have. My favorite by far is 90125. In fact it's the only one I would load up and listen to straight through; listening to any of the others is sort of a chore, especially the live tape Yesshows. Going for the One was picked because I heard some good keyboard stuff on it, Tormato was a purchase of opportunity, Yesshows was in a bargain bin and Classic Yes is a compilation album that I thought would give me a better idea of what I should be looking for, when in fact it was the point at which I finally gave up. I had a college class-mate who was a Yes fanatic and so I blame him. I've said it before: I like their instrumental work but Jon Anderson's voice gets on my nerves after a while.

Like I said about Uli Jon Roth, I would probably have been more interested in Yngwie Malmsteen if I had understood at the time what he was getting at. My own personal opinion is that he should have kicked the singer and just went all instrumental, but I guess you have to have a couple of actual songs to get any radio play. I like this album much more now than I did 25 years ago.

This looks like it might be the end, but for one thing: I skipped my "Various Artists" directory, which I think might be an adventure in itself. So I'm not quite finished yet.

Album count: 577.

10 albums a day #55

The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967, CD)
Vince Gill - High Lonesome Sound (1996, CD)
Voivod - Nothingface (1989, CD)
Wall of Voodoo
- Seven Days in Sammystown (1985, LP)
- Happy Planet (1987, LP)
Warren Zevon
- Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School (1980, cassette)
- A Quiet Normal Life, The Best of (1986, dupe cassette)
- Genius, The Best of (2002, CD)

The Velvet Underground album was for my own musical education, since it is one of those milestone records in rock history. I have one other cassette of theirs which is in the stack next to me but I haven't quite gotten around to ripping it yet.

Vince Gill is my wife's CD. I ripped it out of curiosity.

I bought the Voivod CD because someone told me that they were a thrash band and this album had a cover of Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine" on it. Other than that, I guess it's perfectly good thrash/speed metal or whatever you want to call it.

Click the link to read what I've already written about Sammystown. I bought Happy Planet since it was the next album, but it is brighter and "happier" than Sammystown and it didn't appeal to me as much. I do like it, though. One notable song is "Elvis Bought Dora a Cadillac," about one time when Elvis tipped a diner waitress with a Cadillac.

I learned about Warren Zevon back in the 80s through my friends Brer, Babel and their older brother. A Quiet Normal Life was taped from Babel's CD, and I have deleted all the tracks that are redundant with Genius. He was another artist who was hard to find at Hastings, but I did happen across that cassette of Dancing School one day and bought it. It has one of my favorite songs of his, "Gorilla You're a Desperado." I would still recommend, if someone were looking for a good overview of his stuff, to get both of those "best of" albums because they are not entirely redundant, and I have one minor gripe about Genius in that it didn't include another of my favorite songs, "Desperado Under the Eaves."

Album count: 567.

William S. Burroughs would like this post

The Longest Poem in the World "is composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme."

So ready to go home and go to bed.
My heart isn't broken, and i'm not dead.

[...]

Thank you Ballet de force, Chamberlain's Steakhouse, and Sassy Bratz!!
Off to mum and Dads house tomorrow to look after the cats.

Some of them are pretty good.

10 albums a day #54

U2
- The Joshua Tree (1987, CD)
- Rattle and Hum (1988, CD)
Uli Jon Roth
- Earthquake (1979, LP)
- Fire Wind (1981, LP)
- Beyond the Astral Skies (1985, LP)
Ultravox
- Vienna (1980, LP)
- Lament (1984, LP)
Uriah Heep
- Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble (1970, LP)
- Demons and Wizards (1972, CD)
- The Magician's Birthday (1972, CD)
- Return to Fantasy (1975, LP)

Those are the only two U2 albums I have on CD. I have all the others before those on LP, except I don't think I ever got Boy (their first). It was after plowing my way through Rattle and Hum that I actually thought out loud to myself: that's it boys, I'm outta here. I still think the old albums are great, but I haven't kept up with them since 1988 and I don't really care what they're doing now, because I'm sure whatever it is, it will be immaculately politically correct, overwhelmingly pompous, obnoxiously condescending and immensely popular.

I discovered Uli Jon Roth on a mall run with some co-workers at some music store in San Antonio. They were playing it over the store's sound system and I liked what I heard so I asked about it. The girl I asked said that there was only one left on the shelf and if I bought it she was going to buy their demo record before she left that night. That one was Beyond the Astral Skies. I found the other two some weeks later at a different store, probably Sundance Records. Roth was in a group called Dawn Road that merged with the Scorpions, but after a few albums he went his own way and formed his own group Electric Sun. All three of these albums have both his and the group's name on the cover, so I'm not entirely sure how all that went down but if you want all the details check his Wikipedia entry. Roth is part of that sub-genre that I would have been much more interested in if I had understood what it was all about at the time: neo-classical metal. In any case, I have always enjoyed these albums quite a lot, especially the last one.

One night in the mid-80s I was listening to an interview with Geddy Lee on the radio, and it was one of those shows where listeners could actually call in and ask the questions. Somebody asked him about his influences, not as a bass player, but as far as his synthesizer playing went. He mentioned Ultravox and their album Vienna. Well, it wasn't long before I was at Hastings looking for it, but since it was already several years old they didn't have it. They did have the more recent Lament, so I bought it. Later on I found Vienna at another store. I always meant to get more of their stuff, but I never did. I like Vienna the better of the two, but I enjoy them both. The music is electronic pop that tends toward a certain darkness of atmosphere.

My first-year college room-mate had an old scratched-up LP of The Magician's Birthday, and I listened to it a lot. Later when I was home I found Demons and Wizards at Hastings, but then had to special-order Magician to get it. Still later I stumbled across the CDs for both those albums at Sundance Records. I don't remember the particulars of buying the other two albums; they were picked up somewhere along the way. I like them all, but my favorite is still The Magician's Birthday. I used to play (and sing) "Rain" on the piano when I was in college (I didn't have the sheet music for it, I just picked it out by ear--I sort of have a minor knack for that). I have two later albums on LP that I haven't ripped (Abominog and Rockarama), but they are from later incarnations of Heep and aren't as good.

Album count: 559.

It means "unbranded calf," btw, nothing to do with horses

A very well-kept and -cared for Maverick! In the local Dollar General parking lot. (My kids' school in the background).

Dig those whitewalls!