RDK

I've pretty much given up on emusic after being with them for over a decade now. Even though they still are "cheaper than most," I've been finding so many used CDs these days for just a buck or two that even 3 or 4 dollars for a download seems to much.

Now those are cool!

Exactly!

Is there a box big enough?

Unfortunately, very little of this will ever get a "top quality" release - or any real release at all. Most is stuff that's no longer popular or profitable - which is why Uni hasn't released it thus far. Best shot for any of us ever hearing this stuff in any realistic way is for it to be digitized and made available on the 'net. All of this is already out of copyright in Europe anyway, so nothing is going to stop those "cheapjack releases" - which is probably the only way most of this stuff was available previously. Hell, the best "archivists" I've seen lately are traders and bloggers posting rare stuff for free on the web.

Not many shows could get away with an entire episode about a group of guys going in for a colonoscopy and make it so entertaining!

I like the fake band name my buddy came up with over lunch last week: Rape Whistle.

Considering this is material from 1926-48 that's presumably outlived its "period of profitability," it would be nice if there were some legal mechanism to "donate" this to the public domain - at which point I think we'd all be thrilled to see the LOC preserve it and allow for easy access and/or distribution.

Hey, Johnny, hope to catch you guys again at Taix.

Sounds like they're getting the public (our tax dollars) to digitize and preserve the music for them so that they can later sell it back to us.

I believe my first was in '84 or '85. I actually bought a CD before I bought a player (though I no longer remember why; I probably had someone tape it for me so that I could listen to it until I eventually got the player). My first CD may have been Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, though I also remember Keith Jarrett's Standards Live and Charlie Haden's Ballad of the Fallen being among the firsts.

Cooperstown's definitely worth a trip if you're a baseball fan - that damn museum brought me to tears from all the childhood memories it triggered. Town's very cute as well, though I think a day there would more than suffice. We just passed through about 15 years ago on a NYC-to-LA road trip.

Glad this was mentioned. It's an excellent show!

Very interesting thread! I can't believe I missed it the first time around. It's also a difficult one to answer without a lot of thought and soul-searching, especially when trying to get past the whole "favorite and/or most influential" albums to those that "changed the way you hear music." I suppose I'd have to start with the Beatles, but not any album per se but with the Red and Blue collections, which I first heard on 8-track. I suppose those tracks laid the groundwork for everything that followed, bringing me to rock & roll from the Top 40 pop and teen music of the era that preceded it for me (Jackson 5, Bobby Sherman, Partridge Family, and such). (To digress for a moment with a thought about the Doors from the OP's very first post. I have a very early memory of riding in the car with my father and asking him why someone - presumably Jose Feliciano since my dad wouldn't have been caught dead listening to Morrison - would want someone else to "light his fire." It would take me a few more years to figure that one out! ) Bob Dylan would have to be up there as well, but again it's hard to pin down a specific album since the first Dylan album I actually bought was "Live at Budokan," only because it contained the most songs that I recognized from the radio. I don't recall exactly which one came next, but it was likely HW61, Bringing It All Back Home, or possibly Greatest Hits 2. I know that "Tomorrow is a Long Time" and "Ballad in Plain D" were particularly memorably songs for me as they packed an emotional wallop that I'd never experienced before. "Velvet Underground" (3) also rocked my musical world and opened up all sorts of possibilities. I suppose if nothing else it made me yearn for or at least become familiar with all sorts of cultural behaviors and ideologies that, at least to that point, were utterly foreign to me: drugs, sex, urban lifestyles, etc. Jazz-wise, it would start a deluge, but there are three albums that I remember that really started it all: Mingus Ah Um, Miles' A Silent Way, and a Blue Note 2-fer LP of Thelonious Monk. I grew up in Rochester, home of Chuck Mangione, briefly took drum lessons from a teacher who idolized Buddy Rich, but it took those three albums for me to truly discover jazz - and it changed everything. I'd have to add Duke Ellington in there as well, though I haven't any idea what album it may have been. Before Duke, big band jazz was old peoples' music to me. Perhaps more than any other single artist or album, Ellington seriously opened my ears and changed the way I heard music.

Very nice! So is Freddy playing regularly again? I'd heard he was having some problems. I assume he's no longer living in L.A.?

This is the one my girls have been listening to incessantly lately. My wife made a Hanukkah-themed mix CD of rap and rock...

While Earth Birth is by no means bad - I haven't met a truly bad Weston album - I agree with Chuck that it's one of his more dispensable. I picked up a used copy for just a couple bucks maybe a year ago and was rather disappointed. Randy's more recent stuff with Alex Blake is amazing; they put on a stunning show at the Jazz Bakery a couple years back.

Very, very sorry to hear this, Rolf. I had no idea what you and your family were going through. My deepest condolences.

Thanks for the links. I've enjoyed several of Brad's later albums.

I'm with Moms on this one. I mostly love Sondheim, but unlike the songwriters he "rips" I find that his tunes work best in the context of the actual musicals and don't stand on their own as much as the work of Hart, Gershwin, Porter, etc.

Happy B-day!!!!

Hoping to be there!

Interesting phishing scam as it closely mimics Paypal's legit practices when they suspect fraud. I recently had a fraudulent charge and before I even realized it Paypal "limited" my account until I could get back to them and verify certain information. When I talked to them, the Paypal rep explained that their system flagged the activity as suspicious; an investigation is ongoing. I'm so far very pleased with Paypal's response and follow up to the situation. Which I'm no doubt certain will disappoint Goodspeak.

That's a relief; I thought this was gonna be another Brett Favre thread.

Fantastic! It's in the calendar.