7/4

Chamber Jazz? In my database, I just use Jazz and list the label as ECM.

I haven't had the time.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

What's that tall pointy thing in the back across the water? You also got one in NY... http://www.google.es/maps?hl=es&lr=&q=eiff...&ct=result&cd=1 Eiffel Tower Co-Op Inc (201) 487-0633 151 Prospect Ave Hackensack, NJ 07601, United States Hackensack is not NY!

Kick ass! For only 7.99 I can purchase the CD. Hm.......

It depends on if you're in solitary or not.

I never liked the Catherine Wheel as much as this. I have most of it and love it. Love that dubby bass.

Watch.

The formula is so simple it’s diabolical.

Turn the cogas down in the mix, turn up the cowbell. More cowbell.

In Russia, racketeers are still running wild By Andrew E. Kramer,NY Times MONDAY, MAY 8, 2006 SARATOV, Russia Mike Matthews, a sound-effects designer and onetime promoter of Jimi Hendrix, bought an unusual Russian factory that makes vacuum tubes for guitar amplifiers. Now he has encountered a problem all too common here: someone is trying to steal Matthews's company. Sharp-elbowed personalities in the business world in Russia are threatening this factory in a case marked by accusations of bribery and dark hints of involvement by the agency that used to be the KGB. Although similar to hundreds of other disputes across Russia, this one is resonating around the world, particularly in circles of professional musicians and audiophiles, or fans of high- end audio equipment. Russia, it turns out, is one of only three countries still making musical vacuum tubes, an aging technology that nonetheless "warms up" the sound of electronic music in expensive audio equipment. "It's rock 'n' roll versus the mob," Matthews, 64, said during an interview from New York, where he manages his business distributing the Russian vacuum tubes. "I will not give in to racketeers." Yet the hostile takeover under way here is not strictly mob related. It is a dispute peculiar to a country where property rights - whether for large oil companies, car dealerships or this mid- sized factory - seem always open to re- negotiation. It provides a view of the wobbly understanding of ownership that still prevails. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the collapse of authority and resulting lawlessness in Russia, organized crime groups wielded great influence. Teams of armed thugs carried out takeovers, arriving at a businessman's door with little to back them up but the threat of violence, even murder. Indeed, contract murder reached a frequency of more than one a day in the mid-1990s. Later, various law enforcement authorities, from tax police to special forces units, played a role in forcing transfers of property in the scramble for assets of the former Soviet state. In what became known as "masky shows," police, their faces often hidden behind ski masks, swarmed into a business to intimidate employees and force concessions from owners. The headquarters of the Yukos oil company, for example, saw a series of high profile "masky shows" during the early stage of that company's conflict with Russian authorities, a battle that ended in Yukos's bankruptcy and the jailing of its leader, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Now, the trend in business crime in Russia is decidedly white collar - with the frequent faking of documents, hiring of attorneys or paying off of judges. The problem has become so pervasive among small and medium-sized businesses that it has risen to discussions in Parliament, where a committee on state security addressed the issue and cited more than 1,400 cases of fraudulent takeovers in 2005. The Interior Ministry has opened investigations into the theft of 346 enterprises. "Dozens of major deals for the purchase and sale of companies take place in Russia every month," Yuri Alekseyev, a chief ministry investigator, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. "The process is ever more frequently accompanied by gross violations of the law. "Those seizing enterprises are usually not interested in production and just steal or sell the most liquid assets, in the first place real estate," he added. Here in Saratov, the battle began last autumn when Matthews received a letter with an offer. For $400,000, a company called Russian Business Estates, or RBE, would buy Matthews's factory, called ExpoPUL, which has 930-employees and a turnover of $600,000 or so a month. Matthews quickly refused. Next, a letter arrived warning that the factory would soon have troubles with its electricity; two weeks later, the power went off. Intruders came and used jackhammers to raise dust into the factory's clean rooms. Strange young men in leather jackets loitered outside the factory gate. Matthews, a legend among guitarists as the inventor of the Big Muff guitar pedal, rallied makers of musical equipment who rely on tubes from Russia and promised a fight. RBE's director in Saratov, Vitaly Borin, said he wants to buy Matthews's factory for the building it occupies and then sell to an unnamed investor. He conceded his company is pressuring Matthews, but only using legal tactics. If Matthews does not agree to sell, Borin said in an interview, the factory might run afoul of national security rules. "We have instructions of the FSB where it is written in black and white that a military factory cannot exist beside a company with foreign capital," he said, referring to the Federal Security Service, a successor to the KGB. Near ExpoPUL is a factory that makes electronic components for military hardware. "The FSB hasn't gotten involved only because we haven't gotten them involved," he said. Writing a letter to Moscow would be all he needed to shut the factory, Borin said. ExpoPUL makes two-thirds of the world's musical vacuum tubes. Tuned in to the music industry's needs, Matthews boosted sales from 40,000 tubes a month in 1999 to 170,000 last year. Meanwhile, most of the Soviet electronics industry has gone to oblivion, rendered obsolete by Silicon Valley. ExpoPUL, opened in 1953, is thriving. It is a rare example of a Soviet-era factory that became a success without painful reforms. Hidden in this provincial town, its 1950s vintage technology survived long enough to become a worldwide hit. If the tube factory dies, so will the future of a rock 'n' roll sound dating back half a century, the rich grumble of a guitar tube amplifier - think Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" - that musicians say cannot be replicated with modern technology.

Hanging up and running slow the past couple of days, particularly this morning. Film at 11.

Do you know who the conga girl is that Laswell's talking about? There are no women credited for percussion on the album.

Looks like a Deluxe Reverb. Maybe, they'd...you know...want to plug the instrument into the amp?

I picked up my copy this afternoon and I'm up to cut 6. Man...this edition lifts it out of the murk. I don't know why they had wait so long to remaster it (I still have to read the liner notes or really check out the web site). I'll be listening to this quite a bit. I even feel like learning all the bass lines, it'll give me an excuse to play my bass. It have been nice if they included photos of the other musicans in the booklet.

I love this album, a real classic.

Hey...I know him. He usually plays modern avant classical.

TC in front of the Roseland Ball Room. I saw Jeff Beck there a few years ago. Obviously a historic moment.

A fine example of some fine local architecture.

New Jersey: You'd probably like it a lot better down at the Shore or out by the Delaware Water Gap. Just don't drive through Newark or Trenton.

I'll clue you in: we don't talk like that. Sounds more like Staten Island.

I actually bought one Borbetomagus CD ("Barbed Wire Maggots") last time I was in NYC (in DMG; I asked whether they had more - they didn't (to their own confusion), but Bruce said something along the lines of "it's all the same stuff.. and it's a bit intense"). Sounds like Bruce. I know where he's coming from... - about 12 years ago I was taping the overnight show on WKCR, the next morning I played it back and had my first Borbetomagus experience. - I don't own any of their albums, you probably only need one. - I did hear them perform once at the Knit. VERRRY loud. I wouldn't mind checking them out again. - I've heard Donald Miller many times with other musicans. Like with Charles Curtis: I should go on a Bach binge. It's been a while.