Alexander

I've been looking for this. Seems like you have to order this online, and since I've been doing all of my buying with cash lately, that's kind of tough right now. I plan on getting it sometime, though. I think it sounds great!

That's why I can't fathom those people who claim that original music cannot be made from found sound, or that DJs aren't "real musicians." Not everyone who sits down at a piano is Art Tatum. Not everyone who picks up a saxophone is Bird or Trane. The fact that there are unimaginative DJs out there is no proof that great things cannot be done (and there are GREAT DJs who are doing GREAT things). This is as valid a musical form as any. And it has as many possibilities as any other.

So I brought "Love" to my dad's house when we went for Thanksgiving dinner because I wanted to play him the version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." When I played it for my dad, we went crazy for it. He insisted that we play it during dinner. So we all sat there, eating turkey, listening to the Beatles (which my wife had to listen to in the car all the way to my dad's). Everybody went NUTS. It was huge. I think every person at that table is going to go out and buy a copy tomorrow. LOVE when that happens!

I'd like to hear it. I actually LOVE the Jackson 5. I think Michael was a force of nature when he was kid. Pity his brain eventually melted...

I've always liked "O Canada."

Richards clearly owes people an apology (which I think he has done), but there really isn't anything he can do beyond that. All he can do is hope that people either forgive him or have short memories. As I said before, I don't think that this precludes our ability to enjoy "Seinfeld" or the Kramer character. I don't think it would do any good to "boycott" the show or refuse to buy the DVDs. Richards will be punished (as he already has been) with bad publicity. That's all there is that can be done. As for the guys who are suing, this goes beyond the definition of "frivilous lawsuit." I don't agree with the people who are suing Sacha Baron Cohen, but you can at least argue that there's been some form of defemation of character. After all, those people were actually held up to public humilation while Baron Cohen profits. But nothing of the sort has happened here. These men came forward and identifed *themselves* as the victims of Richards tirade. He didn't call them by name. Their faces do not appear in the video. He owes them an apology (which they've refused). I don't think he owes them a penny.

It is definitely NOT an attempt to replace the orignal catalogue (seconding Jim's comment above). Rather, it offers a new way to hear something that's become as familiar as the sound of your own heartbeat. Do I wish the Martins had gone further? In a way. I think it would have been really interesting to merge the two versions of "Revolution" (maybe even throw in some sounds from "Revolution 9" while they're at it). I loved what they did with "Strawberry Fields," btw. In the space of one peformance, we hear the song's evolution from demo through the various versions, ending with an extended coda that incorperates elements of "Hello, Goodbye" and "Penny Lane." The thing that really struck me is how you really *can* mix and match songs from throughout the Beatles' career and end up with something that sounds consistant.

Speaking of Jay-Z, I did end up getting "Kingdom Come" yesterday. Like the Beatles' "LOVE," this is getting some luke-warm reviews and (as with "LOVE") I think that it comes from inflated expectations (Jay-Z's comeback album, and all that). I found "Kingdom Come" to be a highly enjoyable listen. It's concise (14 tracks, no "interludes" or skits that often plague hip-hop records), it highlights Jay-Z's skills as an MC and has wonderful production (I especially enjoyed the elements of classic soul and even psychedelia). The album sounds great. Is it as good as "The Blueprint?" Of course not. That was a high water mark in Jay-Z's career, and in Hip-Hop in general. Is it as good as "The Black Album?" No, but it comes pretty close. Yes, Jay-Z's favorite topic is still Jay-Z, but that's always been the case. I think this is a solid addition to his canon, even if it isn't the groundbreaking album people were anticipating.

So I got it yesterday and I listened to it last night. This has recieved some lukewarm reviews, mainly (I think) because expectations were so high. Most of the compaints have been that the Martins didn't go far *enough*. That they left the original songs intact (for the most part) and do most of the mixing during the transitions. While it is true that several songs are played all the way through (not all, though), it would be a mistake to think that the Martins left these songs completely untouched. Like Laswell on "Panthalassa," the Martins play with the indiviual elements of each song, sometimes bringing the bass way up, other times dropping the drum track completely. At it's best, "LOVE" is dazzling in it's audacity, though. Highlights include a very cool mix of "Tomorrow Never Knows" with "Within You, Without You" (playing Harrison's vocal over the drum track of "Tomorrow...", and vice versa), an absolutely GORGEOUS version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Martin takes the beautiful acoustic demo for the "Anthology" set and gives it new orchestration. The result sounds like a perfect alternate to the version on "The White Album." I almost perfer it), and a very cool mash-up of "Drive My Car," "What You're Doing," and "The Word" (the Martins mix these into one song, and it works perfectly). Along the way, the samples come fast and furious. Snippets surface for a second, and are gone almsot before you can indentify them (the guitar solo from "Taxman" is used as the solo during "Drive My Car"). The effect is dazzling. It flows along with dream logic. I don't recommend it for everyone, but if you love the Beatles as much as I do, I think you should give this a chance.

He was a direct link to the music of Robert Johnson and a great musician in his own right. He will be missed.

I've got it on hold at Borders. Don't have the scratch this week, so I'll be picking it up next Tuesday (damn it! I HATE waiting!).

I'm pretty sure I don't need this .... Well, you'll never know if you don't listen to it, will you?

Can't speak for "Loveless," as I've never heard it, but "London Calling" is one of the greatest albums ever made, punk or otherwise.

I've been listening to it lately, particularly because of my interest in Danger Mouse (I have his collaboration with Cee-Lo as Gnarls Barkley, the "Danger Doom" album with MF Doom, his Gorillaz album, and another collaboration he did called "Ghetto Pop Life" with Jeminii), but also because I've been listening to Jay-Z's "The Black Album" in anticipation of his new one (due out today). I thought "The Grey Album" was pretty cool the first time I heard it, and if anything my repect for Danger Mouse and his achievement has only grown, especially when I learned that all of the beats on the album were constructed using ONLY Ringo's drum beats and Paul's basslines. Imagine how long that must have taken! I always assumed that DM had used canned beats or even lifted the beats straight from "The Black Album." I read an interview with DM in which he condemns all of those people who released their own "Black Album" mash-ups in his wake. He notes that most of them just threw the thing together in a couple of days, but that "The Grey Album" took weeks of painstakingly counting beats, scouring "The White Album" for material that would fit both the tempo and the mood of the Jay-Z songs, and sampling EVERY TIME Ringo's drum-stick hit the skin so he could later reassemble it into the beats he would use on the album. He said that he actually thought about giving up after about four songs and considered just releasing an EP. Instead, he pushed on and created twelve songs that stand up to the original Jay-Z album in every respect (and even surpass it in some ways, especially since each track on "The Black Album" was done by a different producer). The stand-out tracks, for me, on "The Grey Album" are "99 Problems" (orginally produced by Rick Rubin) in which DM outstrips the original version by sampling "Helter Skelter" for a BLISTERING track; "Encore" (which was used in "The Grey Video") which samples "Glass Onion" and "Savoy Truffle"; "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" which completely reconstructs "Julia"; "Moment of Clarity" which uses "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" to incredible effect (it's all but unrecognizable); "Interlude" which uses "Revolution 9" to create an amazing sound collage; and "December 4th," which combines "Mother Nature's Son" with a song that features Jay-Z mother's voice. Great album! NOT just a novelty.

Well, there goes any lingering respect I might have had for Costello (never liked his music anyway). I enjoy Elvis and never knew about the above......poor judgement and lack of class on his part for sure! m~ Elvis was on tour and extremely drunk in a bar with Bonnie Bramlett & David Crosby in Columbus Ohio. Hell, that alone could set one off. They had been baiting Elvis with putdowns of British rock and he replied in kind. The comment people forget about (though apparently not the only one) is before the Charles remark he called James Brown a "jive-ass nigger." He obviously went nuclear in a drunken cultural sniping fest. I think there's enough evidence otherwise that he knows & loves the music by both Brown & Charles, hence probably why the story is mostly forgotten. No, it wasn't Crosby. It was Stills. Bonnie Bramlett was there, and it was she who punched Costello, but she was a part of Stills's band at the time. According to Costello's own account, Stills and Bramlett were actually being very nice before he started his rant. They offered to buy him and the other Attractions drinks. Costello and the Attractions were already drunk, however, and were (again by Costello's own admission) very arrogant. They saw Stills and Bramlett as a symptom of everything that was wrong with American music at the time (remember that Costello was a part of the British punk explosion, and everything connected with the sixties was to be scorned). Costello and his band started baiting Stills and his band. Costello claims that he was "trying to think of things that would outrage an American musican." Putting down Ray Charles and James Brown (I did know about his attack on Brown) certainly fit the bill. Stills walked out in a huff and Bramlett started throwing punches. Costello later tried to claim that it was one of Stills's roadies that beat him up (he said later than "Bramlett had already ridden to fame on the back of one British E.C., and I wasn't about to let her do it with another.") but Stills's account of the incident jibed with eyewitnesses. Not only was Costello arrogant and drunk, but he had a terrible relationship with the press during this period. He had snubbed journalists all over the U.S., and when he did grant interviews he tended to jerk people around. When the story broke about Costello's tirade, the rock press ate it up. Costello's records were banned in some parts of the U.S. Radio stations dropped his songs from their playlists (it didn't help that his single at the time, "Oliver's Army," contains the lyric, "All it takes is one ichy trigger. / One more widow, one less White Nigger..."). When Costello called a press conference to explain his actions, he only made the situation worse by acting belligerant. He crawled back to England with his tail between his legs. His next album, "Get Happy!!" was inspired by Stax and Motown and was (in part) meant to atone for his remarks. Costello has later written about how deeply he regretted his actions that night. Ray Charles, naturally, showed a great deal of class when he was asked to comment on the situation. He said that "drunk talk was never meant to be printed in the paper." Costello, however, knew that he would never be able to apologize to Ray or to James Brown. When Costello appeared at an awards show in the 90s, he saw Ray Charles backstage. Someone offered to introduce Costello but he declined, ashamed. He wrote, "Here was a hand I could never shake." Also, as someone else noted, this did happen over 27 years ago. Costello has never again behaved in this manner. If anything, Costello has shown himself to be a model of open-mindedness. It's no wonder that he has been largely forgiven, but I do know some people who refuse to let it go and haven't listened to a note Costello has recorded since 1979.

I think we can. We can read T.S. Eliot with pleasure even though we know he was anti-semetic. We can listen to Stan Getz with pleasure even though we know he drank heavily and abused his family. We can listen to Bird with pleasure even though we know he was a junkie who exploited and stole from his friends. We can listen to Miles with pleasure even though he treated women badly. The list of talented people who were jerks in their personal lives goes on and on and on. Now, I know what you're going to say. T.S. Eliot never went off on Jews in the middle of a reading of "The Waste Land." Miles didn't actually treat women badly on stage. As far as I see it, Richards had a bad night. Who knows what was going on in his head BEFORE those guys pushed his buttons? Maybe his girlfriend dumped him or he found out that he was being audited by the IRS. It doesn't excuse his behavior, not by a long shot. And there are ways he could have gone off on the hecklers that wouldn't have involved racial slurs. But it doesn't mean that we can't appreciate his talent and enjoy him when he employs it. I guess I was most reminded of the time when Elvis Costello got into a fight with Stephen Stills and called Ray Charles "a blind, ignorant n-gger." There was an enormous shit storm at the time, yet Costello seems to have been completely forgiven in the public eye. I'm willing to bet that most people have either forgotten about this, or never knew about it in the first place. Can you listen to Elvis Costello the same way now, knowing what he said?

As I understand it, Richards *was* in on the joke when Kaufman broke character, but no one else on the stage was.

Dylan Kliebold, age ten. At last, we know why.

I just got back from picking up my aunt Suzi Stern (an Austin jazz singer of some note) from the airport (she's in town for Thanksgiving). When I met her, she told me that as she was leaving Austin earlier today she ran into McCoy Tyner getting on the same flight (along with Steve Turre). They met at the candy counter and had a nice conversation about Mentos... She gave him a couple of her CDs. When she saw him later on the plane, he patted his carry-on bag and said, "I'm going to listen to these."

I have often said that while it is likely that *some* pedophile priests got into the game because of the opportunities it would present, I think that *most* of them joined the priesthood specifically because they thought that it would help them stay on the straight and narrow. Imagine being a religious person, plagued by unhealthy and unnatural desires that they fear they cannot resist forever. I think they sincerely *believe* that once they take that vow of chastity, God will help them resist the temptation to harm children. They couldn't be more wrong, of course. They have, in fact, placed themselves at the very heart of darkness. They are trusted in the community, and people think nothing (or, at least, did until recently) of leaving their children alone with the family priest. As much as they might try to resist, the temptation becomes overwhelming. I have a fairly jaundiced view of human nature. I feel that most people will take advantage of a situation if they believe they can get away with it. How many of us speed or are prepared to run a yellow light when the situation suits us? How many of us walk off with office supplies? The difference is that in MOST cases, nobody gets hurt. I have never believed that priests are somehow "better" than other people, so when they turn out to be all too human, no I'm not surprised in the slightest. Point of fact, I think that people who throw their lot in with an imaginary father-figure are even MORE human (that it to say, prone to weakness) than the rest of us.

When I first started listening to jazz, about fourteen years ago, I had a very hard time with the recording quality of music before the advent of magnetic tape (in the 1950s). So I didn't get into Bird and Diz and all the rest until a few years had gone by. It happened, I recall, in the late 90s/early 2000 that I finally learned how to listen *past* the clicks, pops and hiss. Now I listen to jazz from all eras (plus blues, country, calipso, etc). I think it's just a matter of experience. The more you know and the more you hear, the more you are capable of hearing.

I don't understand. Why is this strange? A priest tried to take advantage of the defenseless. Hasn't this been happening since Day One, A.D.?

Worst first date EVER.

I bet that the guy who got shot's biggest regret is that he lost his place in line...

Well, do you need a new pair of jeans? If so, I'm sure it'll be worth it. Especially when you get that first compliment. "Nice dungarees, teach!" I own one pair of jeans, and they have a hole in the knee. So yes, it is worth it.