Rooster_Ties

I'll bet a nickel he does everything himself.

Overall, I thought this year's show wasn't half bad. Nothing to get all excited about, but I've seen worse. Overall, I guess I'd give it a letter grade of B-, maybe some of it a solid B. But my expectations are always very low for these sorts of awards shows, so even a B- qualifies as "not half bad" in my book. Didn't get all excited about the Southern Rock thing (I guess the Red States win again ), but it can't be Prince every year.

Thanks a bunch, Chuck, for the Harold Vick session info for "Don't Look Back". Thanks also, Chuck and Michael, for all the other background info on Strata East. Very interesting. Much appreciated!!! (Feel free to keep it coming, if there's more you can share.)

Who all is on that Harold Vick LP?? Never seen the cover of it before either - very cool!! B-)

Quick, who knows where these elevator doors are from???

Saw a whole bunch of Xanadu titles at the Half Price Books locations in and around the Kansas City area too, just a few weeks ago (shortly after the first of the year). I think they were all priced at $4.98 as well. Probably chain-wide.

Everybody should take this, at least once...

No. There are two jewel-boxes per shelf -- only one on each side. (Not two jewel-boxes per support.) Meaning each jewel-box individually (stood on its spine), supports half the shelf. Nothing at all tricky about it -- it's a very simple solution, actually. I've even used slimline jewel-boxes before as supports, though regular jewel-boxes are probably a bit stronger.

Already got a good one goin' here... link: Gerald Wilson Mosaic (long existing thread) I'll give it a bump, and you might consider deleting this thread. Thanks!!! PS: I love this set, but I'll reserve my comments for the other thread.

5,200 is just what 10 of these bookcases will hold. I've only got about 2,500 CD's, and maybe closer to 2,000 is what I really consider "important". I did spend $500 all those cheap bookcases and lumber. But the way I look at it -- that was $500 I could have been spending on more music. In the end, I did by the bookcases and boards, and I'm perfectly happy I did (and so's my wife). But I would have been MUCH less happy if I had spent $1,000 or $1,500 (or more!!) for a more "elegant" solution, when that money could have gone towards other things. And hey, I'm a cheapskate, and proud of it. Doesn't mean I won't spend some serious money for quality in some areas (for instance, we have lots of really cool vintage Danish Modern furniture in our house, in several rooms – and some of it didn’t come cheap). But someplace to store my tunes (upstairs, where most people don’t even see them) wasn't high on my list of places to shell out a ton of cash. (I also drive a 13-year old Honda Accord wagon, that I still love, and hope I can drive another 5 years or more.) Just a matter of priorities. (And buying the cheap bookcases meant I could afford the more expensive vintage Danish Modern stuff.)

I don't know why this is, but when you buy 1"-by-6" boards (at least here in the U.S.), they are all really 5½ inches by ¾ of an inch in size. Some weird construction industry standards that I've never understood.

Sorry my explanation wasn't clear enough. Just picture the largest of the following three bookcases... The bookshelf is almost 6 feet tall, and about 2½ feet wide. When you put it together, there will be five shelves, with a shelf-depth (front to back) of about 9 inches. Then go buy some extra 1"-by-6" boards (one inch by six inch), and cut them to the exact same length as the width of the shelves in the bookcase (almost 2½ feet). You'll need a total of four. On the top surface of each of the shelves already in the bookcase, stand two empty jewel-boxes on end (spine-down), and use them as supports for the extra shelves. (The two empty jewel-boxes will stand at the far right and left sides of each shelf, near the ends of the board.) Then looking at the finished product, top to bottom, you'll have alternating shelves. First a shelf that came with the book shelf, and one that's a board you cut to size. Then another regular shelf, and then another homemade shelf. The homemade shelves are only about 5½ inches deep (cuz that's really the width of 6-inch boards, don't ask me why) -- so the font edges are flush with the edges of the jewel-boxes you'll be storing above and below them (CD jewel-boxes just happen to be 5½ inches deep). The "regular" shelves are about 9 inches deep, so then you get about a 4 inch "lip" in front of every other row of CD's -- which is good for storing small piles of discs that need to be put back in alpha-order. In my case, the bottom shelf doesn't get an extra board, cuz it's down so low - and CD's down there are hard to reach. (I put music books down there.) I'll see if a buddy of mine with a digital camera can take a snap of my setup, so I can post a pic here. I'm supposed to see her next week sometime (maybe next weekend), to shoot some digital pics of some historic homes in my neighborhood -- so she'll have the camera with her anyway.

I've got mine spread around the house, all on the second floor currently. Three are in a central hallway -- with two at one end (all jazz, about 800 CD's), one at the other end (all pop/rock/alternative, about 400 CD's). Plus two in the master bedroom (all classical, about 1,000 CD's). They don't take up very much space at all, actually. Back in our old appartment, I used to have everything in one room -- and it took up a LOT of space that way (or at least it sure seemed to). I didn't have shelves that were as efficient either, in terms of numbers of shelves (vertically). My current system allows about one inch of space between each shelf (verically), and is very efficient. The footprint is only 9-inches out from the wall.

Don't have a digital camera, or I'd just take a pic. But here's what I use. It's VERY inexpensive, works well, and doesn't look at all half-bad either. (I used to use cinder-blocks and unfinished boards as shelves, which my wife hated!!) So I bought a bunch of the largest of the three shelving-units pictured here (about 5½ feet tall, and 2⅓ feet wide)... These are THE lowest of the low-end bookcases available at your regular Office Max/Office Depot sort of place. Got 'em on sale for about $38 per bookcase, and I actually bought 10(!!) of them -- which is double the storage I really need right now, with the thoughts of being able to expand over the years, without having to get mismatching shelves. (They come unassembled in a much smaller box, so storage of the unused units was easy). Now the secret to making these things work is to cut extra 1"-by-6" boards to the exact same length (width) of each of the shelves. Then alternate the full depth shelves (about 9 inches deep) with my extra boards (about 5½ inches deep), giving me 10 shelves per bookcase. And the supports for the extra shelves are just two empty jewel-boxes turned up (on end), to float the extra shelves about a 1 inch above the tops of the CD's stored right below them. The beauty of this is that leaves enough space for irregular-sized box-sets (like the Miles Davis Columbia sets) -- so I can file them alphabetically with everything else (yeah!!!). I don't store CD's on the bottom two shelves, cuz they're way down by the floor (hard to reach), so I put books down there usually, or just leave them empty. The top shelf is right at eye-level, and the extra (homemade) shelves stick out from the back of the case to almost exactly the same as the depth of a standard CD jewel-box (meaning they're flush with the front-edge of each row of CD's). Another benefit is that the regular shelves (the ones that came with each bookcase) stick out abut 4 inches beyond the depth of the CD's – so there's a nice place to stack CD's that need to be filed back. Or put a drink on a coaster, or for a small "travel-alarm"-sized clock, etc... Works very nicely, looks good, and it was VERY cheep to buy enough storage for 5,200 CD's (standard jewel-boxes, about 65 CD's per shelf, 8 usable shelves per bookcase, 10 bookcases total), for only about $400, plus another $50 to $75 for extra boards (1"-by-6") for the extra shelves. That's about ¢9 (one dime) cost per CD for storage. B-) B-) B-) Everybody who's seem 'em, likes 'em. (Spontoonious, time to testify!!)

Let's just bash the messenger, folks, and not the message... I just went to Korn's site -- listened to some mp3's (including a sweet version of Miles Davis' "Side Car"), and saw his list of "suggested links" (which include Bill Carrothers' site, and WattXtraWatt's too). Korn's recordings are on a Seattle-based label, Origin, which I've been fairly impressed with so far -- at least based on the handful of things I've heard (mostly dates lead by drummer Matt Jorgensen).

I KNEW I forgot something! Duh...lemon juice...that's really the secret ingredient that makes it work--no idea why, but it does. Lemon juice is what makes homemade Hummus work too. Not a lot, but just a splash or two.

I'm sure I'm not nearly as adventurous as I'd like to think I am. Sure, I listen to more difficult, challenging music that most people do (60's jazz, and lots of 20th Century classical, including a whole bunch of the 12-tone stuff). But I'm also too quick to dismiss types of music (sub-genres, really), that don't appeal to me very much. For instance... I own upwards of 1,000 CD's of "classical music", but probably less than 10 that are from the "Classical" era (Mozart drives me nuts!! Haydn too. ) My Andrew Hill collection is a mile wide, but I've never got bitten by the Monk bug (at least not yet). In fact, I own more recordings by Herbie Nichols than I do by Monk. Counting sideman dates, I own 10 times as much Joe Henderson as I do John Coltrane. (And hell, if it weren't for all the Miles sides with Trane, I'd have more Tyrone Washington than Trane in my collection!! ) I've got 80% of all the Ornette that's ever appeared on CD (same goes for Don Cherry, though maybe closer to 70%) --- but I've never heard a Cecil Taylor date that's floated my boat much. I don't own or listen to much jazz recorded before about 1955. But I do have and love a wide variety of types of music, as long as I find music within those styles that really speaks to me. I know there are some here that frown on my limited tastes. I like what I like. There's LOTS more I respect, and even admire. But I like what I like.

Speaking of which, how come there isn't Cilantro ice cream??

I like to call music like this "progressive" (or in this case "progressive hard bop"). But I know the term "progressive" makes Chuck's skin crawl (maybe some others here too). But, to try to turn this into a serious discussion (if that's possible)... ...what else can we call music like this?? (I know, "why do we hafta call it anything?? Just listen!!" is the standard response I usually see.) But so many people want to create short-hand ways of describing things –– particularly when they're trying to seek out other, similar music (that's my only motivation here – I'm NOT trying to get into arguments about semantics, I swear.) –– that labels provide at least some value, don't they??? And especially if those labels aren't slavishly applied with maximum rigidity -- because I clearly understand that trying to hyper-categorize music, especially in terms of what IS music-type X, and what ISN'T music-type X -- is completely fraught with danger. Still, many around here use terms like bop, bebop, and hardbop all the time. All I'm asking for is some kind of terminology that helps me refer to the music that bridges the gap between more mainstream "hardbop", and the "avant garde"/"free" movements. (Cuz THAT'S the jazz I love best, and that am constantly searching for more of.) PS: Chuck, this post isn't supposed to come off as a rant directed at you, though I realize it could be read that way (since I called you out by name). I'm genuinely searching for a way to talk about this stuff -- a way that doesn't pigeon-hole the music (and piss people off in the process), but one that still has some value in terms of creating a common language that we can all have some vague understanding of -- even if our personal definitions are not all identical. (You and I have butted heads before about this, and I'm trying to not let that happen again. )

I know, if I don't have anything nice to say -- don't say anything at all. That's usually my motto. But I don't get guacamole, never have, not one bit. Don't get avocados either. Maybe that's my problem.

Yup, and I was just thinking of this configuration the other day -- while listening to the Larry Young Mosaic. Have there been any organ and drums dates?? No other instruments, just those two, with enough material for an entire LP. Since organists are their own bass-players (or at least most of them should be), it makes perfect sense to me.

I was just gonna say Tubax, even before couw posted the name/pic.

They still won't go straight???? ( Hell's bells, Phil -- you started the other thread too. )