ghost of miles

Ya beat me to it!

In anticipation of the new Mobley Mosaic set, and with a note of appreciation to Chuck Nessa for reminding me that John Litweiler’s liner notes for the 1979 LP were included in the CD reissue:

That’s a nice collection! Right now:

The demos disc is one of the best things about the Monster box-set, IMO. It's mostly instrumentals and *not* sketches for songs that made it to the album, but rather material that often seems as if it's coming out of their 80s era... tunes that probably "sound too much like R.E.M.," as the band would have put it at this early-90s point in their career. (There's also one instrumental that did eventually turn into "When Day Is Done" for Accelerate many years later.) The live show is pretty good, though perhaps not quite as kinetic as I'd hoped for, but a worthy representation of that tour and their concert sound around that time. The background interviews (primarily with Stipe and Mills, though Buck pipes in a couple of times) are interesting as well. I would say go for the big box... but then of course I would.

Oh man, I love Live At The Olympia. Great one to listen to during extended car trips. I wish I'd seen them on the Accelerate tour (big fan of that album as well--it and Automatic For The People are probably my favorite post-IRS records).

... and I'm still waiting for a shipping notice! Hopefully it goes out soon.

Thanks for this--I'll revisit them when I get back home this evening.

Still, the Mets have a pretty damn good rotation for 2020, even though they lost Wheeler. The NL East is gonna be a dogfight.

I have only a couple of those 1970s Blue Note LPs, but iirc they came with quite interesting notes. I wish those got included more often in subsequent single-CD and box-set reissues.

Hey Rooster, Monster came up in the "what rock are you listening to" thread... have you heard the box-set reissue that came out a few weeks ago? I just got it yesterday and have really been enjoying it.

Yeah, I listened to Scott Litt's 2019 remix today and thought it worked quite well for most of the songs--some, like "King Of Comedy," "Star 69," and "Let Me In" were more effective in their original versions, methinks. The disc of demos is quite interesting if you're an R.E.M. head--they are *not* sketches for the songs that ended up on the album, but rather material that sounds much closer to 1980s R.E.M. Currently listening to the second disc of the Chicago concert, and it's also quite enjoyable. I saw them on this tour, with Radiohead opening. (I'd also seen them on the Fables, Pageant, Document, and Green tours.) I've always liked Monster in spite of its reputation as "world's most traded-back CD" and am glad to see it getting a re-evaluation all these years on. It definitely was the beginning of their commercial downfall (well, defining that as going from a multi-platinum band to one that sold a few hundred thousand units instead). Much as I also like the follow-up, Adventures In Hi-Fi, releasing "E-Bow The Letter" as the first single from that album really helped seal their downward marketplace trajectory. Also just a natural part of the pop-music-world cycle, which is difficult for any band or artist to stay atop of for more than several years, IMO. And in spite of "Kenneth" reaching #21 and getting a good reception, Monster didn't spawn any mega-hits on the scale of "Losing My Religion," "Stand," or "The One I Love." I'm also still highly partisan to the I.R.S. years, having latched onto the band a few months after Murmur came out (good Lord, I was only 17 then!). Even though Automatic For The People is a classic, to me their most interesting and compelling era is that 1982-87 run, from Chronic Town to Document. They made the jump to stadium-sized popularity about as well as any band could hope to do, though. I've previously posted this article that I wrote about the band's time in Bloomington recording Lifes Rich Pageant while I was living here as a student, but here it is again for any who might be interested. It includes some comments from Mike Mills, who was gracious enough to give me a half-hour phone interview for it, even though it was originally only slated for publication in a local magazine: Talk About The Pageant: When R.E.M. Came To Bloomington In 1986

I did a phone interview with Eddie back in 2009 for this Night Lights program about Vince Guaraldi. Seemed like an extraordinarily sweet guy. Some of his comments about playing with Guaraldi in the pre-Peanuts days are seeded throughout the show, and iirc he has the last word as well: It's Jazz, Charlie Brown: The Vince Guaraldi Story

Wow, that's a 5 or 5.5 million increase over this past year. I doubt that Gardner will put up anything close to the HR numbers he did in 2019 if the ball is de-juiced. But they need him in centerfield, what with Hicks not returning until late in the season. Rumors that other teams were offering him two-year deals, so maybe NY decided to pay him extra to keep it at one. He definitely wanted to come back to the Yankees.

Rendon to the Angels for 7 yrs/$245 million. Angels first MLB team to have handed out three $200 million-plus contracts (Pujols and Trout are the other two).

My credit card was charged yesterday for the Mobley, so apparently the pipeline is about to open.

Featured it on my weekday afternoon show yesterday. Fantastic set all around.

Up for McCoy's 81st birthday today: Tyner Time: McCoy Tyner's Blue Note Years

The 29-year-old may have championship rings and dollar signs in his eyes, but I think the 11-year-old kid with pinstripes in his soul is still there as well: Newsday editor's 2001 photo of Gerrit Cole at World Series goes viral I cannot freakin' wait for the 2020 season to begin.

Already reading that the Dodgers offered roughly the same. An overpay for sure, but one of my main thoughts right now is the 2020 rotation: 1. Gerrit Cole 2. Luis Severino 3. James Paxton 4. Masahiro Tanaka 5. Domingo German or Jordan Montgomery I mean, damn. And remember, NY won 103 games this year despite having the statistically-worst injury rate of any team in modern MLB history. There’ll be immense pressure now, though, to win the World Series. And still bummed about Didi’s departure. Such a joyous and classy guy, in some ways the heartbeat of the team for the past several years. Back to the signing—reading that Andy Pettitte, one of my alltime favorite Yankees, evidently played a significant role in bringing Cole aboard. So glad to see him still involved with the team.

Gerrit Cole to the Yankees, 9 years/$324 million. Holy f’n $#%*.

Rumors that Red Sox are looking to move David Price? And Astros possibly putting Correa on the trading block?! It’s all about the payroll benjamins, baby.

Gonna miss him. Glad he's landing with Joe G again though at Philadelphia. They'll be a fun team to follow next year on the NL side of things.

Yikes, just took a gander at the Angels' 2019 pitching stats--that was a gadawful rotation, and one of the better starters is now dead. Thinking they'll almost have to try to work Ohtani back into it. Signing Cole alone won't make them into a contender, IMO.