DTMX

Here's a picture of David Palmer - pre-gelding. He's the one on the right. After looking at that picture, I'm thinking a couple of snips and a new hairdo was probably all that was needed.

I guess David Palmer goes from being the President to being the First Lady.

It's strangely familar yet disturbingly different - like walking into a Japanese "Mac-a-Doh-Naldo's" for a "ham-boo-gah" and "small fry potato". Ask for a hamburger and french fries and you'll just get a polite smile. Although according to the menu, smiles only cost 0 yen.

1st Jazz Concert: Joshua Redman supporting his first album backed by Christian McBride, Brian Blade and Brad Mehldau. Christian McBride was the best known member of the ensemble. Unlike my usual rock & classical concerts where each performance is a replica of all the rest of the shows on the tour this band actually bantered with each other between and during songs - I felt like I was watching a bunch of guys jamming and having fun rather than putting on a show. And I liked the difference. 2nd Jazz Concert: John Zorn's Masada - before anybody had heard of Masada - with Greg Cohen, Joey Baron, and a new kid named Dave Douglas. It was interesting to watch Zorn rifle through his index cards to pick the next piece, then spontaneously assign solo spots during the music (Greg Cohen usually declined, Joey Baron always wanted more) - and sometimes cutting off someone's solo if Zorn felt it wasn't going anywhere. This was very new to me - seeing music being created as opposed to being performed - and in a hole-in-the-wall dive with my seat about 3 feet from Zorn's music stand. With no advance word as to what this "Masada" thing was, no one in the audience knew what to expect. Zorn came out for a soundcheck and spotted a guy with a Naked City t-shirt and said, "Nice t-shirt - hope you won't be disappointed". Now that I think of it, that's the only time I've ever heard Zorn speak to the audience when he wasn't introducing the band.

Done.

Most of my rap/hip-hop listening takes place at work - just look for the pudgy 40 year old office drone typing away in his cubicle with Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" thumping out of his headphones.

Every now and then I'll see OutKast's Dre/Andre 3000 at Churchill Grounds, Atlanta's best jazz club - he's the guy standing under the biggest afro in the room. Dre's got a real interest in jazz - he asked a friend of mine about giving him sax lessons and sometimes uses the local jazz cats on various Dungeon Family-related recordings. That said, I'm not familiar with their work outside of "BOB (Bombs Over Baghdad)" and "Hey Ya". Now Jurassic 5 - those guys are the best crew working today (IMHO). Old school tongue-twisting rhymes, some five-part harmony, intelligent, clever, witty - delivering a (mostly) positive message with just a little bit of trash talking thrown in. Kind of like the "Bernie Mac Show" set to music. How can you not like a group that introduces their members by name and zodiac sign ala "Float On" by the Floaters? Power in Numbers is their latest release but I think I enjoy Quality Control a little more. One of my all time favorites: Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1 by The Brand New Heavies - a British band playing American funk with Grand Puba, Gang Starr and others contributing. It's an odd combination but it works.

James Spaulding - 'nuff said.

Apparently this guy has a strong opinion on Mr. G's music - and that of many others. http://www.loserasshole.com/music/ With a website name like that - how can you go wrong?

It's the 4th CD down. It's not safe for work. It will probably sell more copies than Andrew Hill's entire catalog combined. I apologize in advance. http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=1862&p=3

I've got half of them. And the author gets docked one letter grade for refering to Stan Getz' "alto".

Sorry for the late response. I got my copy from Amazon.com - it may have been one of their New & Used sellers (I can't remember). My copy was new, 5 CDs, with ample descriptions of the music contained in the booklets (plus some reminiscing by Milhaud's widow). The performances are first rate and the sound quality is very good. The downside is that the quartets are not arranged in chronological order enabling the listener to hear the progression of the composer. Instead they are grouped on each CD by themes or circumstance - almost like how a professor might present two pieces of music to compare and contrast (which is what the booklets do). Here's the link: Milhaud Quartets on Naive Next stop: The Krenek quartets performed by the Petersen Quartet. And maybe Bobby Bradford on Emanem (not a string quartet but too good to pass up).

And now for the rest of the story: Thanks for the input on Milhaud's string quartets. I have a lot of respect for the various opinions and recomendations of this board's participants - that's why I asked. And with that, I reworked the budget and bought the Milhaud box set on the Naive label. Musically richer but financially poorer - try paying the gas bill with a string quartet and see how far that'll get you. 18 string quartets + the octet (14th+15th) and a tribute to Stravinsky. Works out to about $0.71 per movement. All of it uniformly good - I like these chamber pieces better than Milhaud's orchestral works. Lively, somber, traditional, Schoenbergian - there's a lot of variety. And the 14th and 15th work well on their own and complement each other nicely when played simultaneously. Thanks again...

this was at a temple outside of Tokyo. felt kind of funny embibing my locks with incense that is to keep evil spirits at bay (and this was the only ritualistic thing i did). i'm sure all those others that were a foot shorter believed it worked after i left the scene. Was that the temple at Asakusa? Asakusa is a district in Tokyo with a shrine and a giant market surrounding it. Always crowded. I went sightseeing there many years ago and my guide told me to breathe the smoke and enter the temple, throw some money, and pray for something. Didn't work. The next day my watch broke and my boss delayed my return home for over two weeks.

Don't know if it's already been mentioned but Bryan Ferry (of Roxy Music) covered "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" on his "These Foolish Things" release - got to be the strangest version ever.

"Your pirate name is: Dirty Morty Kidd" "You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!" Well that's insulting. I'm going to take what's left of my dignity and go back to the porn name thread.

Yes, but "Bubbles" was a 400lb dancer from the 1930's and no amount of soapsuds was gonna make that movie worth watching.

Bootsy Hopewell. But that sounds kind of silly so I'll just stick with my given porn nickname, Girth Hardwood. B)

I've been on a string quartet binge lately and I wanted to know if anybody had some opinions on any of Milhaud's 18 string quartets. In particular the 14th and the 15th which can be played separately or can be played together as an octet. That sounds like a cool concept but like many works (John Cage in particular), the description of the music is more interesting than the music itself. The only recording I can find of the 14th, 15th, and 14th+15th is a big ol' box set and I'd like to get some opinions on the various quartets before I make a decision to splurge or purge. Thanks.

It's in the string quartets. No. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 kick so much ass it's not even funny.

Some Sam Rivers' big band piece - I'm not sure which one. But it's not "Beatrice".

Thanks - I just wished I'd had a witness to hear it being played. A friend of mine who played in a band that was once signed to a small label (very little airplay) was driving across South Carolina in the middle of the night and he heard a song from their new release - and it was the only song he wrote and sang lead on. He said it was the coolest feeling ever. I remind myself of that everytime I see the 900 leftover CDs taking up a third of my CD racks.

I've won twice, the same contest, using the same method. 96 Rock in Atlanta used to do this thing called "The Perfect Album Side" where listeners would send in a list of 5 or 6 songs and they would get played (if the DJ liked them) and the winner would get a $50 gift medallion thingamabob for the local record chain. Some people went with themes, other just picked their favorite songs. But it helped to have some sort of angle to make your choices stand out. I got sent to a small town in Japan (my first plane trip ever) for about 5 weeks. The day before I left Japan I dropped a postcard - featuring sumo wrestlers - in the mail. The songs I picked all had a Japanese connection: "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors, "Tokyo Storm Warning" by Elvis Costello, "Discovering Japan" by Graham Parker and so on. About a week after I got back I got a call at home from the DJ saying that he was playing my perfect album side and he put me on the radio. I spent the $50 on Herb Ellis and Joe Pass CDs. On my next trip - about a year later - I got dropped in the same small town - all alone - for 7 weeks. Again, the day before I left I mailed a postcard to the station, this time with a theme of home/homesickness/being on the road with all songs performed by Georgian artists - some Allman Bros, ARS, etc... I won again - and bought more Herb Ellis and Joe Pass CDs. But the greatest contest I ever won - a contest that didn't even exist - was a few years ago. I recorded a CD of my own instrumental music, performed to the best of my own limited abilities, designed the film noir artwork, the whole magilla, and printed up a thousand copies. Mailed off to every college radio station I could find. Not a single response. Two years later, on a Monday, around 5AM, I was scanning the radio dials on my way to work when I heard something that sounded familiar. I thought "that is the worst sax I've ever heard". It took maybe 30 seconds to realize that it was me. WREK in Atlanta was playing one of my songs - followed by another one. And another one. They played my entire CD! The CD was an hour long and it only took 45 minutes to get to work so I drove around the office park waiting for the CD to finish so I could hear the DJ announce my recording. After the last song - silence. Dead air. As sometimes happens on college radio, the DJ either wandered off or fell asleep. After 15 minutes of hiss I had to give up and go into the office. Here's how it adds up: Avant Garde College Radio + 5AM + snoozing DJ = only one person in the world heard that broadcast - ME! What are the odds? Sorry for the length of the story - I just love telling it.

We used "Bad Booze Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well, Get Some Now" to help memorize resistor color codes.

Brötzmann - lots of Brötzmann.