Shawn

I've always noticed that flutter at the beginning of the album, but it doesn't exactly keep me from listening to it. It's kind of like the distortion during Henderson's solo on Amanda (from Duke Pearson's Wahoo). Every copy I've ever heard has that distortion (except for the mono vinyl I transferred at one point). Now, the last reissue of Song For My Father I wasn't crazy about, too much distortion in the high end during Calcutta Cutie (which is my fave track anyway), too much high end period. But I doubt very seriously I'd buy it again.

Art Farmer, Hank Mobley, Kenny Drew, Addison Farmer, Elvin Jones

My first (arguable) Thad Jones leader date (though his name is on the CD spine, so that's what I'm going with): After Hours w/Frank Wess, Kenny Burrell, Mal Waldron, Paul Chambers & Art Taylor (PS - this date is KILLER. Still in print, grab it if thou does not own it.)

My first Duke Jordan... Flight To Denmark w/Mads Vinding & Ed Thigpen

there's been many, but one of my absolute favorites: Fairly early in my jazz CD buying days, I saw this one at Borders and the cover had so much ATTITUDE, that I picked it up and bought it without even glancing at the back. Never regretted that decision.

My first Jerome purchase...and still a favorite to this day. personnel: Jimmy Cleveland Hank Jones Kenny Burrell Joe Benjamin Charlie Persip (great friggin' lineup that...)

one of my very first records, I was probably 3 or 4. A masterpiece. "Chicken Heart", "Tonsils", "Go Karts", etc. I found a used copy on vinyl recently and it's just as funny today as ever. The other comedy records that had a major impact on me, for better or worse I don't know... I have this entire album memorized, I could probably recite it verbatim. "...but I did not venture into that Dark Alleyway. Cause it might not have been the voice of God...but 2 or 3 N*s with a baseball bat."

Having to get someone here who has experience with these issues is a real possibility. When I popped in the cd and it described how you connect the cables it WAS very simple. Figured at the time it might be fairly easy. After I had things hooked up, I kept getting an error message instructing to click on the link for the Cisco website for further information. I kept going back over and over thinking perhaps I had made the wrong connections, maybe I had plugged into a wrong port but no possibility of that. Very frustrating to say the least. okay, wireless routers (all of them) are basically the dumbest devices on the planet. if you've done your initial setup and still can't connect to the internet then the router probably isn't assigning your computer an actual IP address so it won't connect. So here's troubleshooting 101 for wireless routers. 1. turn everything off (modem, router, computer) - on the modem & router, unplug the actual power cable that goes into the back of each device. Wait 1 minute 2. Plug the modem back in. Wait 1 minute. 3. Plug the router back in. Wait 1 minute. 4. Turn the computer back on and check connection. That fixes about 98% of all router problems. If it doesn't...and all the devices are new...then something wasn't setup correctly.

my first Pat Metheny album...purchased primarily because of Coleman's involvement (though I had never heard either artist at this point, so this was pretty much my introduction to every player on this date.) Which can take us all kinds of interesting places considering the lineup.

I'm stuck...either that or the rules are so convoluted I'm afraid to post anything.

I'm more interested in pruning down my collection to "essentials", than trying to own EVERYTHING by a particular artist. Life is just too short for that I realize. It's like with box sets. At some point I started collecting box sets. Then quite a few years later I realized...I hate box sets, they're inconvenient, I get tired just thinking about which session is on which disc, etc. So I got rid of a bunch of box sets, then later grabbed single sessions out of those boxes that I REALLY wanted. That's honestly good enough for me. I like all kinds of music and I'm still discovering new stuff I like all the time, so I'm not going to zero in my radar on one style. My CD budget is limited, so I have to spread it around.

I love needle drops...as long as I'm the one doing the mastering. Become quite adept over the years, I have some discs that even once they were re-issued on CDs, my LP rips still sounded better. My latest thing is remastering live bootlegs, love that stuff, really fun to take something that sounds almost unlistenable and "FIND" the music within, it's like treasure hunting.

I think Still Life (1999) is nearly the equal of Blackwater Park (2001) in the songwriting, if not quite in production quality. Blackwater is a little more dynamic overall, but Still Life is the album that Steven Wilson heard that inspired him to contact Mikael in the first place about working together. Still Life was the album where they went from being a death metal band with progressive tendencies...to a progressive rock band with occasional bursts of death metal. On both albums the clean vocals are split about evenly. Still Life & Blackwater Park are both concept albums, so they fit nicely together. The path of progression they've been on since the beginning is pretty staggering, especially when you consider they sounded like nobody but themselves from the first record. Here's one of my favorite songs from Still Life, "Face Of Melinda".

UP Some cool "deconstruction" stuff courtesy of Opeth. First video is from the Blackwater Park era, interesting chord progressions these guys use. second video is example from the Watershed album (Heir Apparent) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibVea9pAHLI&

Thanks to this board and the constant talk about Porcupine Tree over the years, I've become a huge fan. Also, a side discovery during all this was Opeth. Opeth shattered pretty much every (mis)conception I had formed in my mind about what they would sound like. Their use of dynamics, light and dark, beauty and ugliness is really amazing...and it all comes off as effortless. In Mikael Arkefeldt they have a singer/guitarist of Steven Wilson's stature, a really singular voice. At this point I think I like both bands equally, for different reasons. Two of the most "complete" sounding groups on the planet I think. As an introduction, here are two Lasse Holle directed videos from Opeth's Watershed album, which I think is one of the best rock albums of the past decade. Burden: Porcelain Heart:

Beautiful acoustic rendition of "Sentimental"

I don't think any Fripp collection should be without King Crimson's "Islands"...worth owning for A Sailor's Tale alone.

Those 3 records are killer. They were in that interesting "proto-metal" era that spans from about 1968-1975, a time when even "hard rock" bands were experimenting in all kinds of interesting directions. Wasn't really until Judas Priest came out with Sad Wings Of Destiny in 1976 that the accepted "classic metal" style formed (constructed with the basic building blocks provided by Sabbath, Zeppelin & Deep Purple). Unfortunately, the experimentation went away for quite awhile, at least until 1983.

Me too. Haven't drunk the Kool Aid yet, but I'm finding quite a bit of stuff I enjoy. Basically the country-tinged stuff still has me running for the exit...but the trippy fusion-y stuff is awesome.

I agree with Lon, start with the Lamentations video...it's cheap, it's got a nice cross-section of the Wilson albums (contractually that's all they could play for the video anyway) and the sound/video is excellent. It's a good way to get acclimated to their sound and you can really see how passionately they play their music. (Lamentations is available on Netflix instant streaming by the way) My favorite records are the two most recent; Ghost Reveries (2006) & Watershed (2008). But I've gotten to the point where I like all of them now.

It was probably some weird "cookie" glitch...or you've been partaking of something I need. LOL

I was 9 years old when Breakfast In America came out. I just LOVED "The Logical Song", would get hyper excited when it came on the car radio...my Mother hated it because of his vocals. But to this 9 year old, it was the coolest thing ever. After much complaining she finally broke down and bought the album for me. I still think BIA is one of the best "sounding" records from that era, even the original CD version sounded great...it's a great stereo test album. I could probably put together a 1 disc compilation of tracks that I like and would never need to own anything else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfISkpibSCY One of the ELP tracks I actually like, never seen this video before either. Lake looked very young.