kenny weir

I believe the next Off The Record/Archeophone project will be Freddie Keppard. Like you all, I have the Oliver set and look often at other releases, but other stuff always has priority. There's Sophie Tucker coming up.

Kenny and Bennie are proud to support Melbourne Victory (A-League - soccer) and Melbourne Storm (NRL - rugby league). AFL? Yech!

I was plugging away there when my back went - badly. That put me out of training for six weeks, and the rest of winter slipped by in a haze of lethargy. However, I stepped it up again quite a few months ago. And in accepting a golden handshake from my toxic job, I knew full well that wing chun training would become crucial in adding some structure to the challenges of (hopefully short-term) unemployment. And so it has proven. Oddly enough, even though I have no particular reason to arise early in the morning, I continue to get up twice a week at 5.30am for early morning classes on Wednesdays and Fridays, and even made the early Monday class and a Saturday session with my son, Bennie, this week. Four classes in a week! It's very cool to walk out into the new day after training, enjoy a simple CBD breakfast then get back on the same train from which the commuters have just disembarked! Anyway, today was out Christmas yum cha - much food etc etc. Our teacher presented four certificates - and yours truly scored the one for "most improved student 2008". Quite a surprise, even if - I'm sure - more of a cause for encouragement than any back-slapping or smugness.

No, no - I've been WAITING for this offer to come my way. I've been here far too long. Despite the financial meltdown, this is more of a philosophical and health question: If I don't leave, being in such an evil workplace will more than likely kill me. As a journalist who has one week left to work on the newspaper for which I have toiled for about 15 years - and the company for which I have worked for 19 years - I, too, am a half-full thinker on these issues. I'll need to get employed before the golden handshake runs out, but I fully expect that my future will be online, and more than likely with a whole bunch of employers and publications/whatever, rather than a single boss/paycheck. Bummer. Sorry to hear about the job. Good things can come out of seemingly bad situations sometimes, right? Fifteen / nineteen years is a pretty good run. I'll have completed 20 years next Aug. 1. ... Hired in 1989. Whew.

As a journalist who has one week left to work on the newspaper for which I have toiled for about 15 years - and the company for which I have worked for 19 years - I, too, am a half-full thinker on these issues. I'll need to get employed before the golden handshake runs out, but I fully expect that my future will be online, and more than likely with a whole bunch of employers and publications/whatever, rather than a single boss/paycheck.

Interesting Vanity Fair story on Robert Johnson, and a new photo thereof, which embraces issues raised here, hair, hear: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features...1/johnson200811

I should add that in footy mad Melbourne, I am pretty much Robinson Crusoe when it comes to disdain for the AFL code. I work for the Sunday herald Sun, a tabloid that is Australia's biggest selling Sunday newspaper, with a circulation of 600,000+. I've just had a look - and found that the first 13 pages have been allocated to Grand Final coverage for tomorrow's edition. AND THAT'S THE BLOODY NEWS PAGES, NOT THE SPORTS SECTION! It's all quite mad! :rsmile:

Hawks, Cats clearly best two teams of the year. Cats better than Hawks. Therefore - in the interests of unpredictability - I hope the Hawks win. But my indifference to the result could hardly be greater. Yawn. Meanwhile, in other sports that actually mean something ( ): Melbourne Storm thumped Cronulla last night 28-0 to make their third successive National Rugby League Grand Final. The Stormers had key players missing and endured a merciless week from the media over graple tackling. Cronulla coach Ricky Stuart mouthed off about the Storm, thereby virtually guaranteeing his side was gonna get a thrashing. Manly and the NZ Warriors play the other semi tonight. Melbourne Victory sits atop the A-League table and are looking good. Adelaide is in the semis of the Asian Champions League. The Socceroos won the first game of the final round of World Cup qualifying, beating the Uzbeks in Tashkent. Way to go! And the All Blacks won the TriNationms series and the Bledisloe Cup, continuing their status as the best rugby union team on the planet, except in World Cup years.

Huh? What was that again? Oh - man, that's great news. The faster the better. Tinnitus Kenny

Ha ha - I paid for a bunch of that, too. Sheesh. However, the more positive comments herein make me wish a little that we'd shopped around a bit more. But it all costs money. I did find on more than one occasion that what was ostensibly meant to be impartial was alarmingly adversorial - with me on the receiving end. The single male counsellor we had, my ex warmed to - until he started calling her on some of HER BS. And then she walked. In the final mediation sessions to arrange the split, it was me on one side and three women (one, a lawyer) on the other. Or so it seemed. They felt it was perfectly reasonable that a proposal that a fair split of property - car, house, the whole lot - giving her everything and me zip was put on the table. I stood my ground, but it was messy. About six months later, the lawyer phoned me at work to get feedback on how I felt about the whole process, unleashing a tirade that stopped the office. For me, a bright side has been to acknowledge that it all could've been worse if the split had come several years later than it did. And my son's mother has learned to appreciate Kenny as a bit of an ace, one who stays fully immersed in Bennie's life - and, inevitably, hers as well. He's a boy with two homes and not merely a McDonald's dad who sees him once a fortnight or whatever. Alex, I'm sure you're headed that way, too, should your split go ahead. It's pretty cool, actually.

In my (vivid) experience: Two relatively content homes are far superior to a single unhappy one. Man, I hear you on the house stuff - that was part of our deal, too. A house is not a home - but I bet there's absolutely no telling her THAT right about now

Been there, done that - with a kid involved, too. My first advice is to ditch this kind of crap thinking: That's not to say I presume you're without your faults in terms of your relationship. And yes, you will remain a family of a kind. For me it's working OK. But I reckon it's fair to say that in the early days/months/years, you will be in a kind of war. Not a war for child custody or over material goods, but a war for whose interpretation of reality is going hold sway. In my case, a few years down the road apiece, my ex's most firmly, angrily held beliefs about MY total culpability have proven to be an illusion, if not delusional. No doubt we're all three of us better off for the split, but the given rationals for her initiating it look pretty lame these days - something with which, on her more candid days, she concurs. In short, for her getting rid of Kenny was NOT a fast-track to nirvana. Sure, do whatever you need to make it a smooth ride, especially for your daughter. But don't take too much crap - or let HER version of how it is become The Reality. Letting her do so could lead to all sorts of unhealthy ramifications for all and sundry, health-wise in a spiritual, physical and emotional sense. Without knowing the details of your situation - and not wanting to! - I know enough to presume there's plenty of blame to go around. Finally, talk - to buddys, counsellors, whatever. And I know it's frowned upon, but getting hammered a time or two can be a fine release. Just don't go TOO far down that road. Like maybe a block ... just saying.

Sensing - rightly as it turned out - that this was a one-night read, I stalled buying this slim book at the kind of prices it was going for new around Melbourne. $40? No tanks! Anyways, got a remaindered copy on Monday for $10 and finished it that night. On the one hand, my suspicions that Marsh's criticisms were silly - in that they were directed at something the book never pretended to be - stand firm. On the other hand, I wish the book made a more complete assessment of how blues and related musics became cultural icons and listening sustenance for so many of us. By not going into much depth, I did find some of the links a bit tenuous and that were many missing elements. Just for instance, I'd buy a book that really did a bang up job on covering such inter-related subjects as: *Non-American participation in all this. When did the same phenomena that gives us Bear Family and Japanese reissues kick in? Maybe not as early as events covered in the last chapter of the book, but not too long afterwards, I reckon. And then there were all the European magazines and so on. *Other kinds of music. She deals - apart from the Jelly Roll stuff - almost exlcusively with blues, or delta blues. What about old-time country and jazz? And what rockbilly, doo wop, cajun, zydeco, r&b etc etc. My first recall of really spiffy reissues of cats such as Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown came with the European label Route 66, but there was stuff around before that, too. How the delta blues came to be invented in Manhattan is quite a good line, but I reckon what was happening was a lot more complex - and involved a lot more characters - than this book is capable of revealing. And it seems that through overly glorifying the role of Delta blues, that its contribution to rock music in general has been much overplayed. I recently reread Robert Palmer's Deep Blues and also bought a 2nd-hand copy of the Robert Johnson box. In both cases, I was led to believe that without delta blues in general, and RJ in particular, there would've been NO rock music. Hello? Ever heard of Louis Jordan? Or Bill Monroe? *Reissue labels are covered briefly, but I'd love a more in-depth analysis of the role played by Arhoolie (which does make an appearance), Rounder, Roots, Blue Horizon and oodles more. *Only tengenitally does she touch on the influence of musicians - mostly how they were influenced by the pioneering collectors. But these players, too, had a profound impact. And in at least a couple of cases - I'm thinking of the Alexis Korner clique and the New Lost City Ramblers - were far from Johnny come latelies themselves. These sorts of criticism may be a bit like those of Marsh, in that they are about what the book is not. And maybe about what the author simply didn't have the time or budget to address. But being, as I am, quite fascinated with all this, I was left feeling disappointed and wanting MORE. Meanwhile, Marsh's arguments are rendered lifeless by his seeming determination to deny that there was and is any cultural filtering going betwen (delta) blues and the white kids who embraced it. He also fails to acknowledge the Hamilton gives the folk she writes about plenty of credit for their deeds.

O yeah - it's the best of the three by a mile - and for me, even superior to the 73 Winterland box. Great sound.

I looked in the sky Where an elephant's eye Was looking at me From a bubblegum tree And all that I knew was The hole in my shoe that Was letting in water (letting in water) I walked through a field That just wasnt real With 100 tin soldiers Would shoot at my shoulder And all that I knew was The hole in my shoe which Was letting in water (letting in water) (I climbed on the back of a giant albatross Which flew through a crack in the cloud To a place where happiness reigned all year round And music played ever so loudly) I started to fall And suddenly woke And the dew on the grass Had stuck to my coat And all that I knew was The hole in my shoe which Was letting in water (letting in water)

Krugman on the GD in the NYT: Best quote: "In the long run, we are all the Grateful Dead." I know a bunch of people for whome that will be an utterly horrific concept! Op-Ed Columnist Bits, Bands and Books By PAUL KRUGMAN Do you remember what it was like back in the old days when we had a New Economy? In the 1990s, jobs were abundant, oil was cheap and information technology was about to change everything. Then the technology bubble popped. Many highly touted New Economy companies, it turned out, were better at promoting their images than at making money — although some of them did pioneer new forms of accounting fraud. After that came the oil shock and the food shock, grim reminders that we’re still living in a material world. So much, then, for the digital revolution? Not so fast. The predictions of ’90s technology gurus are coming true more slowly than enthusiasts expected — but the future they envisioned is still on the march. In 1994, one of those gurus, Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product — software, books, music, movies — the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to “distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships.” For example, she described how some software companies gave their product away but earned fees for installation and servicing. But her most compelling illustration of how you can make money by giving stuff away was that of the Grateful Dead, who encouraged people to tape live performances because “enough of the people who copy and listen to Grateful Dead tapes end up paying for hats, T-shirts and performance tickets. In the new era, the ancillary market is the market.” Indeed, it turns out that the Dead were business pioneers. Rolling Stone recently published an article titled “Rock’s New Economy: Making Money When CDs Don’t Sell.” Downloads are steadily undermining record sales — but today’s rock bands, the magazine reports, are finding other sources of income. Even if record sales are modest, bands can convert airplay and YouTube views into financial success indirectly, making money through “publishing, touring, merchandising and licensing.” What other creative activities will become mainly ways to promote side businesses? How about writing books? According to a report in The Times, the buzz at this year’s BookExpo America was all about electronic books. Now, e-books have been the coming, but somehow not yet arrived, thing for a very long time. (There’s an old Brazilian joke: “Brazil is the country of the future — and always will be.” E-books have been like that.) But we may finally have reached the point at which e-books are about to become a widely used alternative to paper and ink. That’s certainly my impression after a couple of months’ experience with the device feeding the buzz, the Amazon Kindle. Basically, the Kindle’s lightness and reflective display mean that it offers a reading experience almost comparable to that of reading a traditional book. This leaves the user free to appreciate the convenience factor: the Kindle can store the text of many books, and when you order a new book, it’s literally in your hands within a couple of minutes. It’s a good enough package that my guess is that digital readers will soon become common, perhaps even the usual way we read books. How will this affect the publishing business? Right now, publishers make as much from a Kindle download as they do from the sale of a physical book. But the experience of the music industry suggests that this won’t last: once digital downloads of books become standard, it will be hard for publishers to keep charging traditional prices. Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me. Now, the strategy of giving intellectual property away so that people will buy your paraphernalia won’t work equally well for everything. To take the obvious, painful example: news organizations, very much including this one, have spent years trying to turn large online readership into an adequately paying proposition, with limited success. But they’ll have to find a way. Bit by bit, everything that can be digitized will be digitized, making intellectual property ever easier to copy and ever harder to sell for more than a nominal price. And we’ll have to find business and economic models that take this reality into account. It won’t all happen immediately. But in the long run, we are all the Grateful Dead.

The Hopkins/Aladdin double CD is now at Amazon for $7.99. Great deal, that!

It's an artist thread. About an artist I like. Geddit? This particular band has been around ten years, and has three albums out. This isn't street-teaming for a new band. I figured someone here might be into them. Yes. Pretty cool band with its own thing going on. Devoted fans, too. Although I reckon "a fusion of jazz and light classical" hardly does them justice. Certainly, undeserving of hostile, non-informed, GOC* mutterings. *Grumpy Old Coot.

I don't know about "pioneer," but he was involved with the development of these styles: 1. Bebop: everybody knows he used to skip class at Julliard to play with Dizzy and Bird 2. Cool jazz: not really sure if this was movement, but it was an alternative or counter active to the bebop movement 3. Progressive big band: he collaborated with Gil Evans on numerous occasions and Evans helped Miles produce a very interesting big band sound 4. Modal jazz: think of "King Of Blue," all the songs were based on a couple of scales and were simple in structure, but were very complex from an improvisational standpoint 5. Jazz rock/fusion: Miles was involved with some of the first blending of jazz and rock music, but of course there were several before him that were doing it, Miles just brought it to the attention of the jazz world 6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting Am I leaving anything else out? Pioneer OR populariser? I don't care, really, but I'd add hard bop to the above list. Just saying, while we're talking pigeonholes and all.

Ahhhh ... Jamie Cullum, Michael Bubbleboy, Organissimo. SO (very) cool.

You can't beat this - $12 for two discs at Amazon: And this is a classic:

I'm surprised they haven't been. But just wait - they'll get done. Recently, after waiting and waiting, I recently got the first (classic) Redwing album, which was also a Fantasy release - recently reissued by Fallout. And in the past couple of years I've also snapped up the PPL double, various Sons of Champlin on Acadia and other goodies.

Yeah, I also subscribed to Hot Wacks - they're the crew, IIRC, who turned me on to John Martyn. Another band championed by this lot (ZZ I think, maybe Dark Star) was Clover. I never did hear their American rekkids, but I rilly liked the second of their two Brit-recorded albums. Heck, I'd love to thumb through some old copies of these rags. I remembers the ravings of Steve Burgess fondly.

WTF? Pete Frame was Mac Garry? My first zine experiences in NZ as a high school boy were with Blues Unlimited and, a little later, Living Blues. But I soon moved on to Zig Zag, Dark Star and Omaha Rainbow, the John Stewart-devoted zine put out by Pete O'Brien. Just about the time I arrived in London, Zig Zag went punk, but I credit all three mags with opening my ears to numerous goodies that have stuck with me. I borrowed, with permission, a Craig Fuller (Pure Prairie League) interview in Omaha Rainbow for the underground freebie rag I was puvblishing in NZ at the time. I've been meaning to grab the completist double CD of Kaleidoscope for some time - I'm not sure how much I'd actually listen to it, though! Another zine I was very into at the time was Not Fade Away, put out by Doug Hanners in Austin, Texas. I styed with him on my first trip to the US, in 1977. The internet has changed everything, but I still vividly recall the intense, enlightening, explosive pleasure those zines - little treasures of hipness - would deliver on dropping into our mailbox in the cultural wasteland that was Dunedin.

Yep, although I think guitarist rather than bassist. And, truthfully, at least three of Scaggs' subsequent albums - S/T. My Time and Moments are cleary superior, IMO, to anything released under Miller's name before or after. But then, I consider all three masterpieces, even if minor masterpieces.. Hey I have nothin' against Miller - good luck to him. But slagging off the likes of the GD is just cheap BS. As far as SF blowins, I'd vote for Cody and Crew and also Doug Sahm and crew. That Sir Doug Quintet box set is calling me ...