Rooster_Ties

Come on, get with the 90's!!! - those aren't "homemade"... They're "handcrafted"!!!

For the record, that picture of the freakazoid with the cats isn't me, never was me, and I have no idea who that guy even is. I just typed "happy birthday" into the Google image search function, saw something disturbing, and felt the need to share it with all of you. For instance, a quick Google image search on "freakazoid" reveals that there is, in fact, some sort of a minor pop-culture icon, who really is, well, a "Freakazoid!"!!! And I guess this is his theme-song...

Lord help us, how did we ever get this far into this particular discussion, without mentioning... & Remember The Elements???

To hell with the kittens, just CLICK HERE (but NOT while you're at work). (Animated, fun, and R-rated - but not X-rated. Some volume would help.)

Another priceless one...

My wife and I saw a TV commercial just now for Taco Bell, and I swear to god they've got some contest where you can... Eat at Taco Bell, and get free gas for a whole year!!! And in keeping with that same theme... Pillsbury Doughboy (Have the sound turned up a bit. Not too loud, but some volume is necessary.)

Here's a good one...

What the hell???

Andrew Hill!!!

Trouble is that I've got about 5 or 10 discs I'd like to pick, each for their own "Album of the Week". In fact, I'm ruminating on an idea for a pretty off-the-wall title that nobody will have seen coming. It'll take some logistical work on my part, but it'll be work it I think. More soon, if I can figure out how to make it work, without it costing me an arm and a leg to do. ( It's so weird - and of limited interest (frankly), that I would probably just unilaterally declare it "Rooster's weird album of the month", totally apart from the regular AotW process. It kinda depends on Chuck's reaction to one of the discs I just put in the mail to him yesterday. I'll start a separate thread about it sometime, and try to gauge if there's really any interest or not - and go from there. )

I only got to talk with Hill for about 2 minutes tops, and maybe only like 90 seconds. There were like a dozen other fans waiting for his autograph too, and wanting to get pictures of or with him. He was very nice, and (like I had heard in interviews with him), he spoke with a sort of herky-jerky stutter. Not that he has a stutter, in the medical/clinical sense - but rather, the cadence of his speech was highly 'broken-up' and fragmented. In fact, (and I can't take credit for this observation - it comes from Jason Moran), there are some definite similarities between the 'broken'-ness of Hill's melody lines (rhythmically speaking), and the broken-ness of Hill's own 'normal' manner of speech. Pretty cool observation, actually. He was very nice, and I was honored to have met him. He's one of my biggest heroes, right up there with Miles and Ellington, and Ornette and Sun Ra.

Thanks for the tip!!! FYI, the prices there (now) appear to be... 1 year - $20.91 2 years - $41.93 But that's still a bunch cheaper than the $35 Down Beat wants if you deal directly with them. Or are there any other better offers out there by chance???

Although I'm not a jazz musician (I dabbled once with jazz piano lessons, for one semester, during my senior year of college), I will say that I think that now I would be much more inclined to go that extra mile (now), when I'm in my early 30's (or even back when I was in my mid-to-late 20's), than I ever would have been in high school or even in college. There wasn't any suject (music, or otherwise) that I ever got all that passionate about, until I was at least 25 or 26. Something about being young - or younger, anyway - that often keeps one from digging really deeply into something, or even anything. Stuff like that all seems like so much work, to a 'kid' in his teens or even early 20's. I know not all students are like that, but I know many are - including myself, back in the day.

So, we never did get to hear who was the winner (for Avatars up through June 30th). So, who was it????? And what do they win?????

So Moose, have you tried playing "Cruising With Ruben & the Jets (1968)" for your wife?? Don't tell her what it is, just sneak it on, like maybe sneak it into the mix on a five-disc CD player, and put it on multi-disc shuffle-mode. Could be fun!!

Here's a picture of me and Andrew Hill...

I don't know, maybe ask Dmitry???

I like, but don't love "True Blue" (like I know many folks do - here and elsewhere), but I would tend to agree. This title shouldn't be so damn obscure, or scarce. I'd put this high on the list of RVG-able titles, that are also clearly Conn-ish too.

This might be heresy to say, but I really dig Frank Zappa's brand of Neo-Doo-Wop... Cruising With Ruben & the Jets (1968) Slightly warped lyrics, double-entendres galore, and often slightly warped harmonic changes too -- Zappa's warped Doo-Wop keeps me coming back, year after year. I haven't heard much of the real stuff, I'm afraid. Nothin' wrong with it, mind you - just other priorities I guess....

Often it's the drummers that refocus my attention the most, if I'm distracted. A really good drummer, especially if he's suddenly doing something tasty and unexpected, can snap my head about 180-degrees, faster than almost anything.

Really?? Where'd you smell that??? And, what else is cookin'???????? (is there an echo in here??)

I used to subscribe to Cadence for about 2 years total, probably between about 1991 and 1993. While I did like it, they generally covered so many musicians I'd never even heard of, that I never did renew after those first two years. Sure, there was lots that I liked about Cadence - don't get me wrong. But I always got the feeling that I was missing out on a bunch of stuff too, in favor of really obscure stuff that I had no idea what it was even. Also, I had only been listening to jazz for a couple years by that point, so I'm sure if I saw an issue now - I'd probably see more that I had some frame of reference for. Also, do they still include that huge list of records and CD's that they're sellin'?? - in EVERY damn issue?? And shit, the thing was sorted by LABEL, which always made it impossible to find anything you were actually looking for, if you just wanted to see all the releases they had by Andrew Hill, for instance. (About the only thing that being sorted by label did, was give you some idea what else was being released on labels that you knew you liked.) I think my not renewing with Cadence might have had something to do with that too - when damn near half the magizine was devoted to small-type listings of thousands of records/CD for sale - especially when 95% of the list was the exact same from month to month. Sheesh!!!

So how the hell is it that they can put Sam Rivers on the cover of a mainstream product, like a jazz calendar... ...but they can't friggin' put out "Fuschia Swing Song" as an RVG???? ( And it took 'em how many years just to even get any Sam Rivers back in print in the U.S.??? ) I woulda put out "Fuschia..." as an RVG this year, and then "Contours" as a Conn sometime in the next year or two. IMHO, "Fuschia..." deserves to be in the "mainstream" part of the BN catalog as much or probably more than Tony Williams "Life Time" (which is an RVG), and at least as much as Wayne's "All Seeing Eye" (which is also an RVG).