Brandon Burke

The Savoy sessions are equally great. Lot's of familiar faces there as well: Hank Jones, Kenny Burrell, Jerome Richardson, etc. Not sure if it ever made it onto CD, though.

Gerhard Richter

I've been a big time fan of YLT for about 12 years now and can't seem to get into Summer Sun. Too much noodling for me. It's a bummer because they're the only currently existing rock band who has yet to disappoint me. The live show was great, however, as expected. They never disappoint live and did something like a 10-12 minute version of the Sun Ra cover. I especially enjoyed And then Nothing... and can safely claim Painful as my all time fave. I definately prefer their more down-tempo material since they sound entirely too much like Sonic Youth when the try to *rock* (think "Cherry Chapstick", "Flying Lesson [Hot Chicken #1]" and "Big Day Coming"). Anyways, YLT have managed to create an aesthetic both avant-garde and romantic; which is a rare and beautiful thing. "Music to fold your girlfriend's laundry by" I once read. Couldn't have said it better myself..... Nice people too.

I'm not a particularly big football fan (college or pro). This likely stems from the fact that (1) my alma mater, the University of Kansas, is a basketball school and (2) I worked at Arrowhead Stadium for about four years. It was the beginning of the Carl Petterson era and that guy is just an assh*le. Straight up. To this day, it still baffles me how Chiefs fans can hate the Raiders so much when their own GM is nothing more than a younger Al Davis. Anyways......I seldom miss the Rose Bowl, regardless of whether ot not it determines the championship. It's just one of those special events in sport.

Believe me, I'm not made of money either so I know where you're coming from. I should also mention that, despite it's being packaged in a standard case, Down By Law is actually a 2-disc set. This may help sway your decision. Also, it's my favorite film of all time. B)

Be careful what you wish for, my man. If nobody bought these at retail price then they wouldn't be able to afford to issue anything else. And I, for one, prefer a world with Criterion DVDs. The same can be said of Blue Note Conns as well.

These are being reissued by Criterion (in the States) next month if you missed out on them the first time around.

I can't argue with that but I will say that Dancer in the Dark is the most *stable* of his films. So if you had a hard time with him simply by viewing that then steer clear of The Idiots and The Kinfdom. They're sure to ruin your day. (In the best way possible.)

Listening to "Ginza Samba" from Stan Getz with Cal Tjader right now and, having heard Vince on this tune, I invite anyone to further this argument. Seriously. Dude sounds like (admittedly a West Coast) Bud Powell. I mean, gimme a break......

I don't know where to begin with this one: And this one just went OOP a few days ago:

Agreed. How about Frank Butler........

Sorry to be so terse but this is a ridiculous conversation. I listen to very little West Coast jazz but there's something very unique about VG. Unfortunately, most people's opinions of his work (and, consequently, his entire aesthetic) are governed by the fact that he made that soundtrack. If you ask me, VG understood saudades much better than Getz or any other American who employed Brazilian modes. For the record, even though it has next to nothing to do with the rest of my collection, this is one of my favorite records jazz or otherwise.....

Thanks fellas. As you may know, it's also the birthday of Old Blue Eyes. And I want to say Darryl Strawberry too but I'm not sure..... Cheers!

This is a little emrarassing but I've come to really appreciate the last Coldplay record. Yes, they sound a great deal like Radiohead and latter-day U2 but, as it happens, I can't stand Radiohead. People refer to Coldplay as 'Radiohead lite' but I don't think that's fair. What I like most about them (Coldplay) is the fact that they aren't afraid to write love songs. Something of a lost art amongst *modern art-rock* bands. Radiohead is just too cold and distant for me. As though they think their music belongs in the damned MoMA or something. Gimme a freakin' break.... It's nothing that Gastr del Sol didn't do ten years ago only it's coupled with overly dramatic emo vocals. Yeesh... No thanks.

Wow! I can't argue with those. Good lookin' out..... I might also mention Neil Young On the Beach. I know it's on CD now but the mix sounds funny to these ears and that's EASILY my favorite Neil Young record. Also, anything by the Feelies, the Soft Boys, Yo La Tengo, Slint, the Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt, Galaxie 500, the Jesus Lizard, the Pixies, Low, and Stereolab (when they still played real instruments). And it goes without saying that any session produced by Steve Albini is going to sound considerably better on LP.

The only LPs that I alphabetize are jazz and rock, because I reach for them most often and I have considerably more of them than any other genre. Folk, classical, reggae, Brazillian, blues, and all of that stuff have their own place as well but it wouldn't take me as long to find any one particular title. At least not long enough to warrant alphabetizing.... Something like the 'Massey' show I would put under Parker but.......in the grand scheme of things, who gives a damn. No one's going to look for a specific title in there but you so do what comes naturally to you. Split BN doubles and other things like that usually go at the end of jazz in my scheme, regardles of who's on it, and in no particular order. But that's just me.

Jim brings up a good point. This is likely not what he meant (sorry) but I'll go on record as saying I'm fascinated with the way that hip hop culture has cut apart and reassembled Anglo English. Actually, and at the expense of whatever credibility I might have here, I wrote my Masters thesis on the manupulation of Anglo English in hip hop; more specifically, by the Wu-Tang Clan in the mid-90's. Those guys are really damned interesting. Easily on par with the canonical Sun Ra/P-Funk/Lee Perry "crazy guys commenting on modern culture" scenario we've all heard about 900 times. Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, GZA and Inspectah Deck I find the most interesting. Ghost and Rae tend to employ rhymes involving phrase upon phrase without any apparent connection; only a series (again) phrases stacked upon one another. I mean, even most hip hop folks will tell you that (even if you understand the dialect) Rae is way out in left field: "We split a fair one, poker nose money Gin rummy with glare, spot the lame, bit his ear Yo, you taste a tea - spoon, 300 goons, stash baloons Locked in lab rooms, hit with glock, stashed in Grant's Tomb Clocked him like a patient, his stock's full, hustle invasion Knowin now, we cocked a block off, the chain tri - color Freezin in valor, ice - sicle galore Gas station light gleamin on the wall Cop WiseGuy jams, James Bond vans Niggaz flipped Timbs, rock boats under water, watch clams Pose at the stand - off, mad timid Hopin that the gun fall, guess him like lottery balls, yo" That's some seriosuly abstract business--yet, in context, it creates its own narrative--and I know a fair amount about hip hop lingo. You just have to let it come to you and, even then, it still won't "make sense". It's a lyrical/narrative tone poem in the way that David Lynch works. GZA, on the other hand, is particularly notorious for deconstructing the language and even uttered the phrase, "Operation: Project English" in 1997. Inspectah Deck on Wu-Tang Forever summed up the breakdown of Western grammatical structure (and its subsequent misunderstanding) rather well by saying: "I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies And hypothesis can't define how I be droppin these Mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery" Amazing stuff....

I understand where wolff is coming from but that's hardly a reason to miss out on hearing these great records altogether. I mean, there's some wonderful, wonderful stuff in there. Some of my favorites of all time (esp. the Arthur Jones and Jacques Coursil dates). Sure, they're not *audiophile* fidelity but the point of buying music (ultimately) is to hear the freakin' tunes, right. Unless you're the kind of guy who buys DVDs of awful Jerry Bruckheimer films just so you can show off your theatre system.......I think you'll be fine. It's not that big of a deal. Also, though there are considerably fewer dates available, there's always the CD route......

Alright, here's the deal. I never really paid attention to whatever car commercial has that silly Celine Dion song. Saw it tonight during Letterman and found this line more than a little puzzling: "isn't it ironical that love is all we need." Here's what I can't wrap my brain around: (1) I'm not convinced that "ironical" is actually a word; (2) it's in no way ironic that love is all we need; and (3) if they're trying to convince us to drop $30,000 on a car, why are they reminding us that 'love is all we need'? Amazing.....

Yep, I have one of those too but I took it up to the lab so we could digitize LPs. Now I've got two Technics 1200s, a Vestax PCV-275 mixer, Pinoeer SX-780 amp/reciever, Phillips CDR-775 disc player and a couple of Danish speakers a friend of mine retooled. Works for me.....

Well, first of all, BYG records weren't particularly well pressed in the first place. There are a couple of titles I have on reissue (Jacques Coursil Way Ahread being one og them) simply because it sounds better. As for the mastering job, I've never A/Bed them or seen any documentation in re the transfer but blah blah blah blah.... The point is that even the originals sounded less than stellar.

I think Sundazed does a fine job with their reissues, though I don't own any myself. As for the "Josie" reissues, you gotta know that Josie themselves aren't putting those out. It might be who of you to research who bought the rights. On a similar note, there are several reissues of psychedelic 60's dates formerly on majors now out on reissue vinyl (I'm thinking specifically of The Millennium, Sagittarius, Gandalf, etc.) that are clearly not funded by the labels who initially issued them (Capitol, Columbia, etc). Interestingly, they do not include reissue credits either on the jacket art or on a decal (a la Sundazed or Get Back) so it would be difficult to track down their origins.....